skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Detailing the Potentially Marginalizing Nature of Undergraduate Mathematics Classroom Events for Minoritized Students at Intersections of Racial and Gender Identities
Title: Detailing the Potentially Marginalizing Nature of Undergraduate Mathematics Classroom Events for Minoritized Students at Intersections of Racial and Gender Identities
Undergraduate mathematics instruction contributes to marginalization among women and racially minoritized individuals’ experiences. This report presents an analysis from a larger study that details variation in minoritized students’ perceptions of potentially marginalizing events in undergraduate mathematics instruction. With past research on undergraduate mathematics experiences largely focused on students’ post-hoc reflections and one or two race-gender intersections, this analysis extends prior work by attending to variation in students’ in-the-moment perceptions of mathematics instruction across various race-gender intersections. Findings highlight how issues of underrepresentation, stereotypes, and instructor care contributed to interpretations of instruction-related events as potentially marginalizing. The report concludes with implications for teaching practices in undergraduate mathematics that academically support and socially affirm students from historically marginalized backgrounds.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1711712
PAR ID:
10120900
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Editor(s):
A. Weinberg, D. Moore-Russo
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education
Page Range / eLocation ID:
377-384
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, Journal of the Learning Sciences)
    BACKGROUND. Calculus instruction is underexamined as a source of racialized and gendered inequity in higher education, despite research that documents minoritized students’ marginalizing experiences in undergraduate mathematics classes. This study fills this research gap by investigating mathematics faculty’s perceptions of the significance of race and gender to calculus instruction at a large, public, historically white research university. METHODS. Theories of colorblind racism and dysconsciousness guided a critical discourse analysis of seven undergraduate calculus faculty’s perceptions of instructional events. FINDINGS. Our analysis revealed two dominant discourses: (i) Race and gender are insignificant social markers in undergraduate calculus; and (ii) Instructional events can be objectively deemed race- and gender-neutral. We illustrate how calculus faculty varyingly engaged these colorblind discourses as well as discourses that challenged such conceptions of instruction. We also highlight how faculty dysconsciousness in reports of instructional practices reflect potential operationalization of dominant discourses that reinforce colorblind racism. CONTRIBUTION. With limited research on faculty perspectives on racial equity in mathematics, our study documents how color-evasive, gender-neutral discourses among mathematics faculty shape orientations to instruction that reinforce the gatekeeping role of calculus in STEM higher education. Implications are provided for race- and gender-conscious undergraduate mathematics instruction and faculty development. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; (, Cognition and Instruction)
    null (Ed.)
    Undergraduate mathematics education can be experienced in discouraging and marginalizing ways among Black students, Latin students, and white women. Precalculus and calculus courses, in particular, operate as gatekeepers that contribute to racialized and gendered attrition in persistence with mathematics coursework and pursuits in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). However, student perceptions of instruction in these introductory mathematics courses have yet to be systematically examined as a contributor to such attrition. This paper presents findings from a study of 20 historically marginalized students’ perceptions of precalculus and calculus instruction to document features that they found discouraging and marginalizing. Our analysis revealed how students across different race-gender identities reported stereotyping as well as issues of representation in introductory mathematics classrooms and STEM fields as shaping their perceptions of instruction. These perceptions pointed to the operation of three racialized and gendered mechanisms in instruction: (i) creating differential opportunities for participation and support, (ii) limiting support from same-race, same-gender peers to manage negativity in instruction, and (iii) activating exclusionary ideas about who belongs in STEM fields. We draw on our findings to raise implications for research and practice in undergraduate mathematics education. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)
    Teamwork is critical to engineering professional work. While some aspects of teaming with engineering students are well understood and implemented into instructional tools, tools for handling student teams dealing with implicit and explicit racism, sexism, and homophobia are infrequent. Instructors of large undergraduate courses need tools to help make team-level marginalization visible at the classroom level to interrupt discriminatory or marginalizing behavior amongst teammates, and to model allyship so teammates learn how to interrupt others' marginalizing behavior when instructors are not around. This paper describes the broader project, and describes some early results, focused on an algorithm that can help identify teams engaging in marginalizing behaviors against minoritized students, whether minoritized by race, gender, nationality, LGBTQ identity, or other categorization schemes. We describe how the algorithm is proving useful to identify student teams to focus on for analysis to answer some of our research questions focused on how engineering undergraduate teams marginalize minoritized members, and illustrate one such analysis. We describe our continuing work on the broader project. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; (, International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education)
    Abstract Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) seeks to improve equity in instruction and leverage students’ experiences by promoting academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. We examine instructors’ perceptions of student identity to understand the ways undergraduate mathematics instructors are enacting or experiencing barriers to enacting CRP. Interviews with ten mathematics faculty at Hispanic-serving institutions identified two potential barriers to enacting CRP: first, instructors’ hesitance to communicate about student identity, especially with respect to race and gender; and second, instructors holding epistemologies that mathematics is culture-free. Despite these barriers, almost all interviewees implemented the academic success tenet of CRP. These barriers may prevent instruction around cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness, which are the two tenets that most capitalize on students’ informal knowledge, identities, and cultural experiences. Changing discourse by taking more risks in conversation and inviting a more diverse range of people to the undergraduate mathematics community are potential ways to address these barriers. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; (, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)
    In this paper, we discuss the results from our study on the experiences of first-year Black and Brown engineering students in engineering teams. This work is part of ongoing research on identifying teams engaging in marginalizing behaviors against minoritized (race, gender, LGBTQ identity, nationality) students. Using a diary study methodology, we explore the team experiences of Black and Brown students by examining two research questions: 1) what does racial marginalization look like within engineering classrooms where teamwork is a primary feature and 2) what experiences from the dairies inform researchers and faculty about participants’ experiences and personal knowledge of how race and racism operates in teams. We identified two central themes: 1) participants often avoided conversations when race could be a potential topic, and 2) participants believed that racism was a normal part of teams (in both the classroom and workplace). Participants explained that even if race was not explicitly discussed during their group work, they sensed that implicit bias and discrimination were affecting their experience. Further, when we asked participants how to increase support related to their teaming experience, they reported feeling unsure of what can be done to eliminate behaviors of racism and marginalization from engineering education. The participants expressed that change needed to happen so that other Black and Brown students are welcomed into the field, but that no one on campus (peers, faculty, and staff) has asked them about ideas for change. This diary study provides important insights into how Black and Brown engineering students contextualize their experience with marginalizing behaviors in teams. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email