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1. Storytelling, Mathematics, and Community

   Chao, Theodore (October 2023, Proceedings of the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   In this plenary discussion, Dr. Chao presents his research framework and reflections from engaging in Digital Mathematics Storytelling within Black, Asian American, and Asian American communities in multiple countries. The framework, based heavily around storytelling, counter-storytelling, and Critical Race Theory, has been employed as a workshop to elicit mathematics video stories from youth and mathematics teachers. Here, Dr. Chao reflects on what he’s learned from these workshops and how he’s started to recognize not only the power of storytelling for forging mathematics and community identities, but the dangers to our society because of social media and weaponized uses of mobile video everywhere. He ends by calling for a new critical digital media literacy within our field of mathematics education. 

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2. “I really got to think about my background, their background, and how do we come together on something?”: One emergent mathematics teacher leader's reflexive journey with Social Justice Mathematics

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12688  

   Kokka, Kari (July 2024, School Science and Mathematics)

   This 2-year qualitative case study focuses on one emergent mathematics teacher leader, Mr. Miller, and his conceptualization of Social Justice Mathematics (SJM). SJM is a justice-oriented pedagogical approach where students simultaneously learn dominant mathematics and explore social injustices to take action toward justice. Using Rodriguez's (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 1998, 35, 589–622) sociotransformative constructivism framework, findings illuminate how dialogic conversation, authentic activity, and metacognition supported Mr. Miller's reflexivity about his positionality, which he described as “upper middle class, highly educated parents, white, male,” in relationship to his students' positionality. He taught in a public charter high school in an urban city in the Northeast United States, where approximately 60% of students identified as Black, 30% white, 10% mixed race, 1% Asian American, 1% Latine, and less than 1% Indigenous, with 60% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The article discusses of the importance of reflexivity for teachers and teacher leaders of all backgrounds, and especially when educators of dominant backgrounds work with students of historically marginalized backgrounds. The article calls for further research with more experienced mathematics teacher leaders of various backgrounds and contexts to further investigate justice-centered mathematics teacher leadership. 

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3. Past due! Racializing aspects of situated expectancy-value theory through the lens of critical race theory.

   https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000337  

   Matthews, Jamaal Sharif; Wigfield, Allan (May 2024, Motivation Science)

   The authors take first steps in racializing Eccles and Wigfield’s situated expectancy value theory (SEVT). SEVT was initially developed to explain gender differences in motivation for and choice of STEM majors and careers but has been mostly silent on issues of race and racism in motivation research. Thus, the authors focus on Black American adolescents’ school experiences and reconceptualize three parts of the model: SEVT’s conceptualization of the cultural milieu, its portrayal of the socialization of motivation in school and at home, and aspects of individuals’ subjective task values, one of the key constructs in the model. To “break down silos” we connect SEVT to Critical Race Theory (CRT) by suggesting the cultural milieu “box” in the model be reimagined to include the impact of systemic racism and discrimination, power differentials, school segregation, and inequities in teacher quality and transience. Regarding racial socialization patterns within schools, we propose the notion of stage-culture-environment misfit, and evaluate teachers’ beliefs, biases, and cultural (in)competence. We also connect SEVT to empirical research on racial-ethnic socialization, specifically how the parents of Black children prepare them for discriminatory experiences and foster healthy racial identities. Turning to individuals’ subjective task values, we suggest expanding the cost aspect of task value to include racialized opportunity cost. We also extend intrinsic and attainment aspects of task value through integrating the emergent literature on Black joy. We conclude by suggesting critical pragmaticism as a possible broad framework in which motivation researchers from different perspectives can work together. 

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4. Anything But Race: Race-Evasion and Color-blindness in Preservice Teachers’ Responses to a Hypothetical Scenario.

   Gutiérrez, J.F. (January 2021, Reflecting the Past and Embracing the Future.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS 2021).)

   null (Ed.)

   This paper contributes to the literature challenging color-blind racism in teacher education by presenting findings from a study involving elementary preservice teachers responding to a hypothetical teaching scenario about race. Framed by theoretical perspectives on race-evasive teacher identity studies and color-blind racism, our findings reveal four typical response components—apologize, explain, solve, and appreciate. We describe each component and explain how all four can serve to evade race and hide/reproduce color-blind racism. 

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5. Color-Evasive/Conscious? A Content Analysis of How Engineering Faculty Discuss Race and Racism in a U.S.-Based Equity-Focused STEM Professional Development Program

   https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13030233  

   Espinoza, Kristine Jan; Rincón, Blanca E. (March 2023, Education Sciences)

   Against a backdrop of calls for increased access and participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the United States have emerged as critical access points for Latina/o/x and other Students of Color. Federal grants can become important levers for building institutional capacity for broadening participation in STEM and transforming HSIs toward better serving Students of Color, specifically as it relates to curricula and pedagogy. In this study, we focus on the engineering faculty at an HSI who are participants in a National Science Foundation-funded, equity-focused professional development program. Operationalizing Bonilla-Silva’s color-evasive racial ideology framework, we use content analysis techniques to explore how engineering faculty discuss race and racism as part of the professional development experience. First, we find that engineering faculty largely rely on color-evasive racial frameworks (i.e., abstract liberalism, minimization of racism) when describing their motivations for participating in the program. Moreover, we find that engineering faculty responses depict a range of surprise and familiarity when reflecting on issues of race and racism. Finally, regardless of prior exposure to module concepts, at the end of the program, the majority of action projects reflect a recognition of race and racism as important. 

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