Culturally Specific Pedagogy in the Mathematics Classroom

Strategies for Teachers and Students

Jacqueline Leonard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780815368175
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351255813
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Multicultural Education

Advocating for the use of culturally specific pedagogy to enhance the mathematics instruction of diverse students, this revised second edition offers a wide variety of conceptual and curricular resources for teaching mathematics in a way that combats and confronts the forms of oppression that students face today. Addressing stratification based on race, class, and gender, Leonard offers lesson templates that teachers can use with ethnically and culturally diverse students and makes the link between research and practice. Connecting cutting-edge and emerging technologies to culturally specific pedagogy, the second edition features new chapters on mathematics and social justice, robotics, and spatial visualization. Applying a more expansive focus, the new edition discusses current movements such as Black Lives Matter and incorporates examples of rural and tribal students to paint a broader picture of what culturally rich mathematics classrooms actually look like. The text builds on sociocultural theory and research on culture and mathematics cognition to extend the literature and better understand minority students' goals and learning needs. Including new discussion questions and new examples, lessons, and vignettes of integrating culture in the mathematics classroom, this book employs pedagogical research to field-test new instructional methods for culturally diverse and female students.

Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1
CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT

Introduction

In August 2015, I attended a gala at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, Colorado. The gala was held to raise funds for Shades of Blue, a nonprofit organization founded by Captain Willie Daniels. At this gala, I had the pleasure of meeting Nichelle Nichols, co-star of the original Star Trek television series that aired from 1966 to 1969, who was the keynote speaker. Becoming a spokesperson for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1970s, Ms. Nichols helped to recruit women and Black astronauts for the space program, including Sally Ride, who in 1983 was the first American woman in space, and Frederick Gregory, who in 1989 was the first African-American to pilot the Space Shuttle Discovery. Other notable engineers and astronauts at the gala were Ed Dwight, who in 1961 was the first African-American astronaut candidate, Dr. Guion Bluford, who in 1983 was the first African-American in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger, and Joan Higginbotham, who flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2007. The aforementioned astronauts are true heroes of science and related disciplines. They are STEM role models and an inspiration for this text, along with the women in Margot Shetterly’s (2016) book—Hidden Figures.

Despite a myriad of accomplishments in STEM domains by women and people of color, mathematics remains the gatekeeper to STEM pathways and careers (Martin, Gholson, & Leonard, 2010). This is important to note because myths about who can and cannot do mathematics continue to influence some teachers’ beliefs about specific cultural groups (Joseph, Jett, & Leonard, 2018). If teachers judge their students’ success in mathematics by socioeconomic status (SES) classifications alone, deficit ideologies may perpetuate low expectations of children from African-American and Hispanic communities (Gorski, 2008). Thus, there is a need for a new edition of Culturally Specific Pedagogy in the Mathematics Classroom. This edition challenges myths about mathematics ambivalence among students of color with narratives and case studies about teaching and learning that exemplify excellence in mathematics, specifically, and STEM in general.

Drawing on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) as the overarching theory, culturally specific pedagogy (CSP) supports the following goals for students: (a) student learning, (b) cultural competence, and (c) sociopolitical consciousness. CRP describes these goals as tenets, which are defined as follows: student learning (i.e., demonstrable growth in requisite subject areas), cultural competence (i.e., firm grounding in one’s culture of origin while acquiring fluency in at least one more culture), and sociopolitical consciousness (i.e., use of school knowledge to solve relevant social, cultural, civic, environmental, and political problems) (Ladson-Billings, 2017). CRP empowers students “intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 20). However, learning tasks that not only have cultural significance but also expose unjust practices and empower students to challenge the status quo are the hallmark of teaching for social justice (Gutstein, 2006). CSP goes further to help students to develop their identity (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, etc.) within the learning community. In order to understand the construct of CSP from a social justice standpoint (Leonard, Brooks, Barnes-Johnson, & Berry, 2010), the theoretical frameworks that support it must be understood.

Theoretical Frameworks

The theoretical frameworks that undergird the research reported in this text are critical race theory (CRT) and Black feminist thought (BFT). Both of these frameworks are needed to understand the context in which underrepresented students and females of color learn mathematics.

Critical Race Theory

CRT in education was first proposed by Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate as “a framework developed by legal scholars [that] could be employed to examine the role of race and racism in education” (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005, p. 8). CRT challenges the colorblind approach of a traditional, liberal, civil rights stance and can be traced to the legal work of Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman in the mid-1970s (Delgado, 1995). CRT begins with the premise that racism is the norm in the U.S. (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 1998). The theory suggests that coded language has become a way of “referring to and disguising forces, events, classes, and expressions of social decay and economic division” (Morrison, 1992, p. 63). For example, the term urban has been used to describe schools that serve predominantly Black and Brown students regardless of whether the schools are located in large cities or not (Anderson & Dixson, 2016).

CRT examines how citizenship and race interact (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Based on the construct of “whiteness as property” (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005, p. 5), “whiteness as an explicit cultural product [takes] on a life of its own” (Apple, 2003, p. 113). CRT acknowledges the relationship between skin color and access to power, privilege, and status in society along with access to property and material goods. Conversely, there are systemic and institutional forces at work that continue to oppress people of color. CRT gives voice to people of color as they tell their stories and experiences within a context where the method of analysis is the narrative (Brayboy, 2005; Duncan, 2005; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Thus, CRT “is an especially useful tool for examining how socio-temporal notions of race inform the naturalization of oppression and the normalization of racial inequality in public schools and society” (Duncan, 2005, p. 94). In other words, as beliefs about race become entrenched in society over time, systems of privilege and marginalization become institutionalized (Han & Leonard, 2017).

CRT is characterized by six themes that help to define the framework:

• Recognition that racism is endemic to American life;
• Expression of skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness and meritocracy;
• Challenges to ahistoricism and insistence on a contextual/historical analysis of the law.… Critical race theorists … adopt a stance that presumes that racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage;
• Insistence on recognition of the experiential knowledge of people of color and our communities of origins in analyzing law and society;
• Interdisciplinary nature; and
• An end goal of eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression.
  (Matsuda, as cited in Dixson & Rousseau, 2005, p. 9)

CRT has been adapted and used by scholars from other minority groups as well. Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit), Asian critical race theory (AsianCrit), and tribal critical race theory (TribCrit) all emerged from CRT. There are nine tenets of TribCrit; however, the following three tenets help to illuminate the issues that are common in all of these theories: (a) colonization is endemic to society, (b) U.S. policies toward Ingenious people are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain, and (c) Indigenous people occupy a transitional space that accounts for both the political and racialized natures of their identities (Brayboy, 2005, p. 429).

CRT suggests that European domination, whether it is imperial or colonial, leads to oppression. In this system, “Whiteness” is legitimized as the culture of power and becomes normalized (Matias, 2013). This norm is characterized by labeling all people of color as “non-White.” Racism is the exercise of prejudice and power to institutionalize “White privilege” and support that privilege with laws and police power. Such a system empowers Whites and disenfranchises people of color. For example, Native Americans were deprived of land under laws such as manifest destiny and the Norman yoke (Brayboy, 2005), and African-Americans were prevented from voting and deprived of land under Jim Crow (Apple, 2003; Duncan, 2005). Though the Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964 to reverse discriminatory practices, it has done little to protect persons of color from failing schools (Leonard, McKee, & Williams, 2013), unfair housing practices (Gutstein, 2013), gentrification of historically minority neighborhoods (Schrader, 2017), and racial profiling by police (Dyson, 2017; Hill, 2016; Himmelstein, 2013). Thus, the common thread in CRT is giving voice to those who are marginalized while working to promote antiracist practices in our communities and institutions (Han & Leonard, 2017).

CRT validates the voices of those who are marginalized and is a framework that may be used to examine both moral and social justice issues in education. Critics of CRT claim, however, that a single voice, abstract idea, or thought cannot explain the experiences of an entire group of people or community (Duncan, 2005). This criticism has merit. Thus, the voices of women (e.g., BFT), LGBTQ persons, and marginalized youth must also be heard. While no theory is perfect, complete, and without limitations, collective voices, stories, and other narratives are needed to resist oppression and persist in the struggle for civil rights (Brayboy, 2005; Duncan, 2005). However, as Dixson and Rousseau (2005) pointed out, one of the core values of the CRT movement that has been largely unrealized is an “active struggle” (p. 22). More than 60 years post-Brown v. Board of Education, African-Americans, as a demographic group, are still attending separate and unequal schools. Despite the incredibility of our stories, “it is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals in order for people today to recognize their potential agency as a part of an ever-expanding community of struggle” (Davis, 2016, p. 2).

Black Feminist Thought

In addition to CRT, another theoretical framework is functional in capturing women’s voices. However, rather than simply drawing on feminist frameworks in general, BFT is used to examine the experiences of Black females¹ in this text (Collins, 2009). The rationale for using such a framework is twofold. First, much of the gender-based literature on mathematics omits race, focusing primarily on White women’s attitudes and performance in mathematics (Leonard, Walker, Cloud, & Joseph, 2017; Walker, 2014). More recent literature on intersectionality (e.g., race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation) reveals a broader view of students’ identities (Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013). Second, Black females have highly positive attitudes toward mathematics and are just as likely as White males to persist in advanced mathematics courses at the high school level (Walker, 2014). “The societal meme that women are not good in mathematics or are not confident in mathematics largely does not apply to Black women” (Leonard, Walker, Cloud, & Joseph, 2017, p. 101).

BFT is a critical social theory that seeks to “empower African-American women within the context of social injustice sustained by intersecting oppressions,” such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and citizenship (Collins, 2009, p. 26). Black women in the U.S. have a distinct set of challenges as a demographic group, but they do not all have the same kind of experiences (Collins, 2009). Black women “struggle to survive in two contradictory worlds, simultaneously, one white, privileged, and oppressive, the other black, exploited, and oppressed” (Cannon, as cited in Collins, 2009, p. 29). In this text, Black females’ experiences (including my own) in mathematics will be viewed through the lens of BFT because the theory is applicable to the intersectionality of their experience in public institutions.

Culturally Specific Pedagogy

Culturally specific pedagogy (CSP) provides the context for CRT and BFT to function as means to empower students of color and females to overcome the oppression of Euro-American mathematics (Aikenhead, 2017). American classrooms are microcosms of a larger society in which racism, power, and privilege converge to empower some students and disenfranchise others. Teachers who are cognizant of CRT and BFT can change classroom dynamics by using cultural and social justice pedagogy not only to teach mathematics but also to challenge hegemonic structures that oppress women and people of color (Han & Leonard, 2017; Leonard, Walker, Cloud & Joseph, 2017). CSP is a construct that explicitly links culture with content to help students engage in social action and identity development (Gutstein, 2006; Leonard, 2009).

Furthermore, Gutstein, Lipman, Hernández, and de los Reyes (1997), borrowing from Ladson-Billings, contend that engaging in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliographical Note
• 1 Culture, Identity, and Mathematics Achievement
• 2 Cognition and Cultural Pedagogy
• 3 Cultural Pedagogy
• 4 Computational Thinking, Computer Scaffolding, and Game Design
• 5 Robotics, Spatial Ability, and Computational Thinking
• 6 Women in Aviation and Space: The Importance of Gender Role Models
• 7 Learning Mathematics for Empowerment in Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Classrooms
• 8 Black Lives Matter: A Context for Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice
• 9 Race and Achievement in Mathematics: A Historical Perspective
• Appendix A—Computational Thinking Rubric
• Appendix B—Scratch Dance Party Tutorial
• Appendix C—Knex Data Collection Sheet
• Appendix D—Sculptris Bison Tutorial
• References
• Index