Mathematics in and through social justice: another misunderstood marriage?

The current push to marry off mathematics with social justice compels one to ask such critical questions as “What is social justice?” and “How does (or can) mathematics look and act when viewed in/through the lenses of social justice?” Taking a critically reflective approach, this article draws the reader into a discussion of what is amiss in the currently promoted picture-perfect marriage of mathematics and social justice, presenting perspectives on both the content and context of mathematics teaching and learning. In this article, the author’s account of her experience in teaching a mathematics curriculum course for prospective middle years' teachers highlights a call to re-imagine the relationship between mathematics and social justice as more than a perfunctory integration of a “statistics and figures” approach. The author’s reflections acknowledge the complexity and potentiality of the relationship while challenging current status quo practices and paradigms in mathematics education.     

Engaging with issues of emotionality in mathematics teacher education for social justice

This article focuses on the relationship between social justice, emotionality and mathematics teaching in the context of the education of prospective teachers of mathematics. A relational approach to social justice calls for giving attention to enacting socially just relationships in mathematics classrooms. Emotionality and social justice in teaching mathematics variously intersect, interrelate or interweave. An intervention, using creative action methods, with a cohort of prospective teachers addressing these issues is described to illustrate the connection between emotionality and social justice in the context of mathematics teacher education. Creative action methods involve a variety of dramatic, interactive and experiential tools that can promote personal and group engagement and embodied reflection. The intervention aimed to engage the prospective teachers with some key issues for social justice in mathematics education through dialogue about the emotionality of teaching and learning mathematics. Some of the possibilities and limits of using such methods are considered.     

Significant learning in catholic religious education: the case of Temuco (Chile)

ABSTRACT

The object of this article is to reveal the teaching strategies used by teachers for religious education in Temuco, Chile. The paradigm used was qualitative and the design was a single interpretative case study. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews with pupils and religious education (RE) teachers. The results show convergences of successful strategies, such as the use of conversations to form opinions related with the pupils’ everyday interests. We conclude that significant learning for catholic religious education in schools (CRES) includes teaching strategies associated with individual and collective reflections and conversations on topical social issues. Thus, religious education may enable us to advance towards a pluralist approach to the teaching of religion.     

Why Diversity Matters in Rural America: Women Faculty of Color Challenging Whiteness

Using critical race theory as an analytical framework to examine White privilege and institutional racism, two teacher educators, in a rural predominantly White university tell counterstories about teaching for social justice in literacy and mathematics education courses. In sharing our counterstories in this paper, we, women faculty of color, challenge Whiteness and institutional racism with the hopes of: (1) promoting social justice teaching in order to globally prepare (pre-and-in-service) teachers and educational leaders to motivate and empower ALL students to learn; (2) dismantling racism to promote better wellbeing for women faculty of color; and (3) moving educational communities at large closer toward equitable education, which is a fundamental civil right. After analyzing the counterstories, we suggest that university leaders establish policies and practices to support (recruit, retain, and promote) faculty/leaders of color, not just mainstream academics. Working toward equity and justice, we strive to form alliances between Whites and Others.     

A Synchronous Online Social Work PhD Program: Educational Design and Student/Faculty Response

ABSTRACT

Faculty and students evaluate the curriculum design and delivery of a synchronous online PhD program in social work that prepares scholar-practitioners in social work research, education, and organizational practice. The designers envision a collaborative community of scholars and leaders nurtured by a cohort-based, sequenced curriculum, and intentional faculty mentoring. This teaching and learning platform provides an opportunity to engage with a globally diverse population of doctoral students while fostering both relationships and quality learning outcomes. Educational design and pedagogical features of the program are described and analyzed through the collaborative thinking and learning platform of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model’s interdependent elements–teaching, cognitive, and social presence. Eighteen students and ten faculty evaluated the strengths and limitations of the online program across each dimension of the model through student course evaluations, focus-group reflections, and qualitative faculty survey data. Student and faculty respondents specified the benefits of synchronous presence across all three dimensions. They also identified significant barriers, particularly in the areas of teaching and social presence. Implications and recommendations are based on a review of findings that inform pedagogical decisions and design options for online PhD education in social work.     

Bridging the macro- and micro-divide: using an activity theory model to capture sociocultural complexity in mathematics teaching and its development

This paper is methodologically based, addressing the study of mathematics teaching by linking micro- and macro-perspectives. Considering teaching as activity, it uses Activity Theory and, in particular, the Expanded Mediational Triangle (EMT) to consider the role of the broader social frame in which classroom teaching is situated. Theoretical and methodological approaches are illustrated through episodes from a study of the mathematics teaching and learning in a Year-10 class in a UK secondary school where students were considered as “lower achievers” in their year group. We show how a number of questions about mathematics teaching and learning emerging from microanalysis were investigated by the use of the EMT. This framework provided a way to address complexity in the activity of teaching and its development based on recognition of central social factors in mathematics teaching–learning.     

Doing Social Justice: Turning Talk into Action in a Mathematics Service Learning Course

Abstract

Many students experience mathematics as a neutral entity, without understanding its impact on social justice and equity. Students must understand that mathematics and statistics are powerful tools for creating social change, and that students themselves are capable to enact positive social change through their mathematical abilities. In this paper, we discuss how we have integrated both service learning and mathematical consulting into a single course to promote civic engagement by mathematics majors through professional applications. We outline methods to engage with community partners to create consulting projects for students while integrating discussions of professionalism, practice, ethics, and social justice into the classroom. We provide qualitative evidence that the integration of service learning and consulting empowers mathematics students to make a difference by doing social justice with mathematics.     

Critical thinking in criminology: critical reflections on learning and teaching

Fostering critical thinking abilities amongst students is one component of preparing them to navigate uncertain and complex social lives and employment circumstances. One conceptualisation of critical thinking, valuable in higher education, draws from critical theory to promote social justice and redress power inequities. This study explored how students’ critical thinking developed in a discrete core unit of criminology. Second and third year students were invited to participate in the research. Participants wrote critical reflections on how their thinking about crime and criminal justice had developed throughout the unit. Analysis of responses indicated that certain topics were salient to students, offering a way to engage them in deeper thinking. Students’ critical reflections showed evidence of personally relevant meaning-making, including the development of more nuanced thinking about crime and justice, and more compassionate rationales for aspiring to careers within the field. Implications for learning and teaching critical thinking in criminology are discussed.     

Development in South African Primary Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Work with In-Service Teachers

This paper focuses, empirically, on the developments seen in a group of South African early grades’ mathematics teacher educators in the course of a university-provincial education department partnership project. This project sought to support the district Mathematics Subject Advisers to support, in turn, teachers to implement an intervention consisting of a sequence of four lessons focused on multiplicative reasoning. Outcomes based on pre- and post-tests administered by the Subject Advisers suggested substantial pre- to post-test improvement at the student level. Subject Adviser observations and reflections pointed to successes in engendering more dialogic conversations between mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators focused on mathematics and its teaching and learning. The ‘double move’ of increasing overlap between the subject adviser and teacher communities, coupled with evidence that implementing the intervention had enabled the Subject Advisers to develop their mathematical and pedagogical understandings, provides a useful way of considering development in the capacity of mathematics teacher educators to support mathematics teaching and learning.

     

Using Graph Talks to Engage Undergraduates in Conversations Around Social Justice

Abstract

We present a mathematical activity called graph talks as a new pedagogical routine to intertwine social justice issues and mathematics. Adapted from number talks, graph talks involve students analyzing, interpreting, and discussing real-life data represented in graphs. Graphs may be strategically selected to both highlight a relevant social justice issue while also reinforcing the mathematics content of the course. We report on experiences using graph talks in undergraduate mathematics content courses for future teachers in the USA, and provide examples of the undergraduates doing mathematics while analyzing the social justice context of the graphs.     

‘I was kind of teaching myself’: teachers’ conversations about social justice and teaching for change

This article shares teachers’ conversations within teacher inquiry groups and considers how this reflective approach has potential for transforming teachers’ practices. Conversations took place at the early stages of a longer teacher inquiry project and centred on the critical interrogation of social justice-oriented children’s literature. These conversations served as a forum to help teacher professional learning communities and to reconcile understandings about social justice, action and agency within larger political and cultural forums of teaching. The teacher inquiry sessions shared in this paper explore teachers’ beginning struggles with conceptualizations of social justice, and the teacher’s role in imparting values to students. Teacher participants imparted their experience and practice as they negotiated their own understanding and implementation of social justice education in their schools. The teacher inquiry groups provided a needed supportive space where classroom teachers’ struggles were shared alongside their beliefs and pedagogical approaches so that a social justice agenda could be achieved.     

Prospective teachers’ teaching experience: teacher learning through the use of video

Background: Future teachers need to observe, interpret and analyse teaching during the initial teacher education period. The use of videoed teaching and learning in teacher education promotes reflection, and analysing videos of teaching is helpful in learning effective classroom practices that prospective teachers mostly do not have the chance to observe during fieldwork experiences. The analysis of videos of teaching can be seen as a way to enhance the development of prospective teachers’ professional vision, which, in turn, improves instruction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on video examples depicting their own teaching experiences. It aimed to create a professional development environment to facilitate the prospective teachers’ reflection on their own videos and those of their peers to improve their professional vision. Sample: This study was conducted with over 200 (in 31 groups) third-year prospective mathematics teachers in a university in Western Turkey. The student teachers, receiving training to teach first- to fourth-grade elementary school pupils, were taking a teaching methods course. Design and methods: In the first week of the semester, the student teachers, working in groups, were assigned mathematics topics to teach the elementary school pupils. During the semester, each group prepared by trying out their activities in front of other student teachers in other groups. At the end of the semester, one student teacher from each group presented a short lesson related to their mathematical topic to the elementary school pupils. This lesson was videotaped, then later it was watched and discussed by the student teachers. Of the student teachers who undertook the teaching in the videos, 22 volunteers agreed to be interviewed. All groups of student teachers provided written reflections on their experience. Selected videos of the class discussions about the videos of teaching were also used for triangulation. The data were analysed to identify the issues the prospective teachers reflected upon. A content analysis technique was employed. Results: The data indicated that the prospective teachers were able to reflect on several issues related to effective teaching, connect their theoretical knowledge to their practice and consider issues related to pupil learning and difficulties. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the use of video, together with discussions between the student teachers, had the potential to create promising learning opportunities for prospective teachers.     

Mathematics education as sociopolitical: prospective teachers’ views of the What,Who, and How

In this article, I introduce a framework—the What, Who, and How of mathematics—that emerged from studying my teaching of prospective teachers and their views of the social and political dimensions of mathematics teaching and learning. The What, Who, How framework asks us to consider What messages we send about mathematics and the world, Whose perspectives are represented in mathematics, and How mathematical concepts and our world are related. I situate each aspect of the framework in the literature on social justice and critical mathematics and provide examples of prospective teachers’ views. The What, Who, How serves as a tool to understand prospective teachers’ views, to navigate a broad range of literature on social justice mathematics, and a means of informing the practice of teachers and teacher educators.     

“The sun is sleeping now”: Early learning about light and shadows

To keep intuitive knowledge fluid for an extended time, we wish to encourage young children to examine continuously those intuitive explanations for natural phenomena which later become hard wired, highly resistant to development or change. To assist this we designed a learning package which integrated three extensively researched educational strategies (cooperative learning, informal inquiry and familiar context) for children to explore their notions about the topiclight. Children in a kindergarten class were encouraged to share their ideas about shadows and shadow formation with peers, as they took part in explorations of shadow formation inside and outside their classroom. Whole class discussions, small group conversations and final conversations between researcher and small groups provide insights into social and individual construction of knowledge, young children's abilities to be scientific and the social construction of gender. Specializations: children's learning in science and technology; inclusion; contexts, teaching models.     

“Darker than any prison,hotter than any human flame”: Punishment,choice, and culpability in A Clockwork Orange

Contemporary textbooks in criminal justice use A Clockwork Orange to illustrate issues of correctional and sentencing practices. This article challenges criminal justice faculty and students to use the film to explore the political and social realities of punishment, in particular the examination of the moral question of “voluntariness” and the implications for “treatment” as a mechanism of social control. This paper explores the moral questions of state sponsored social control and using the film satire invites the student to examine their beliefs about the political and social realities of punishment and rehabilitation.     

Motivating Students to Work with Elders

Abstract

At a time when increasing numbers of elders need and continue to rely on social work services, it is important to build enthusiasm among students to prepare them for future work with this special population. A three-pronged approach to teaching about aging, which is built on the strengths perspective, critical social construction, and a human rights and social justice focus, is recommended. For each part of the method, a theoretical rationale is outlined, and specific readings, films, music, class exercises, and written assignments to enhance the learning process are presented and discussed.     

Evolving through tensions: preservice teachers’ conceptions of social justice teaching

ABSTRACT

This study utilized cultural historical activity theory to explore the evolution of nine preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) conceptions of social justice teaching while enrolled in a social justice-oriented teacher education program. From three interviews conducted over one year, findings show that tensions PSTs encountered while student teaching in high-poverty schools predominantly shaped their thinking. PSTs’ conceptions of social justice teaching evolved to include navigating inequitable systems, loving students critically, and viewing social justice teaching as uniquely personal. Implications include the importance of teacher educators leveraging inevitable student-teaching tensions as learning opportunities to further PSTs’ commitment to social justice teaching.