Abstract
This paper reports on how 10 middle and high school preservice teachers (PSTs) designed a social justice focused lesson using the culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) tool. Results from our analysis indicate that most of the PSTs were able to select appropriate social justice topics, though not all the PSTs integrated mathematics and social justice throughout their lessons. The results show that most of the PSTs need more experience with mathematization, handling controversial discussions, and developing transformative student action. Our work also led to a modification of the tool (CRMT-M). We discuss the implications of the study for mathematics teacher preparation.
Highlights
The difference between the knowledge and experiences valued outside school versus those that are privileged in school are a commonly cited cause for the underperformance of culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLD), who are a majority in urban schools [1–6]
Recall that we set out to address the following research question: How do preservice teachers (PSTs) implement social justice contexts into their lesson design using the modified culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) tool?
Given that the PSTs were explicitly instructed to create a lesson grounded in a social justice context, the social justice element was the target of our analysis
Summary
Scholars argue that teachers must understand, and build their instruction on, CLD students’ cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives [7,9,10]. By situating their learning within their lived experiences, such culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) leads to meaningful learning and positive academic outcomes for CLD students [9]. Freire’s goals were to enable pupils from oppressed groups to develop a critical consciousness of the world around them through a praxis of action, reflection, and agency [13]. While he was mainly concerned with the development of literacy, Freire’s ideas translated into mathematics education as well. It seems imperative that teachers foster critical mathematics consciousness; that is, the Mathematics Teachers’ Culturally
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