Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221141949
Chaddrick D. James-Gallaway
Background/Context: In New Orleans, Louisiana, in the years following Hurricane Katrina, predominantly white education reformers have used entrepreneurial support to dismantle the predominantly Black city’s public education system. Using racial domination without community approval, these education reformers have educationally disenfranchised the Black community by implementing No Excuses (NE) Charter School Management Organizations (CMO). The rise in these organizations has also led to the mass firing of the city’s majority Black educator base and the hiring of majority white educators. Scholarship on NE CMOs notes their use of dehumanizing behavioral practices meant to control their student populations. Accounts, however, are limited from those who have witnessed, experienced, or resisted these dehumanizing behavioral practices. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study: Through the critical race theory (CRT) lens of racial realism, this paper provides a critical race personal counternarrative (CRPCN) that characterizes the racist and racialized disciplinary and surveillance practices used to control Black students’ bodies. It examines my experiences as a teacher within an NE CMO, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) school in New Orleans. Furthermore, this paper underscores my own Black fugitive pedagogic acts alongside my Black students, acts that allowed us to create fleeting moments of freedom inside and outside our classroom. Research Design: I relied on critical race methodology to construct a CRPCN against KIPP, which prides itself on positive behavior practices and social justice. The evidence I drew on included free-written notes, conversations with former students and teachers, media (e.g., photos and videos), and scholarly literature. To analyze data, I drew on CRT concepts of racial realism and the permanence of racism in U.S. society to underscore Black fugitivity, anti-Black surveillance, and discipline. Conclusion/Recommendations: Racial realism provides a lens for identifying the evolution of racialized surveillance technologies on Black bodies within the United States. Although critics characterize racial realism as overly pessimistic, this paper notes one way that scholars, educators, students, and parents can draw on this tool of racial resistance to accept the current racial reality, uncover racially oppressive schooling practices, and highlight strategies of survival through fugitive acts.
{"title":"“The Kids in Prison Program”: A Critical Race Personal Counternarrative of a Former Black Charter School Teacher","authors":"Chaddrick D. James-Gallaway","doi":"10.1177/01614681221141949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221141949","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: In New Orleans, Louisiana, in the years following Hurricane Katrina, predominantly white education reformers have used entrepreneurial support to dismantle the predominantly Black city’s public education system. Using racial domination without community approval, these education reformers have educationally disenfranchised the Black community by implementing No Excuses (NE) Charter School Management Organizations (CMO). The rise in these organizations has also led to the mass firing of the city’s majority Black educator base and the hiring of majority white educators. Scholarship on NE CMOs notes their use of dehumanizing behavioral practices meant to control their student populations. Accounts, however, are limited from those who have witnessed, experienced, or resisted these dehumanizing behavioral practices. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study: Through the critical race theory (CRT) lens of racial realism, this paper provides a critical race personal counternarrative (CRPCN) that characterizes the racist and racialized disciplinary and surveillance practices used to control Black students’ bodies. It examines my experiences as a teacher within an NE CMO, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) school in New Orleans. Furthermore, this paper underscores my own Black fugitive pedagogic acts alongside my Black students, acts that allowed us to create fleeting moments of freedom inside and outside our classroom. Research Design: I relied on critical race methodology to construct a CRPCN against KIPP, which prides itself on positive behavior practices and social justice. The evidence I drew on included free-written notes, conversations with former students and teachers, media (e.g., photos and videos), and scholarly literature. To analyze data, I drew on CRT concepts of racial realism and the permanence of racism in U.S. society to underscore Black fugitivity, anti-Black surveillance, and discipline. Conclusion/Recommendations: Racial realism provides a lens for identifying the evolution of racialized surveillance technologies on Black bodies within the United States. Although critics characterize racial realism as overly pessimistic, this paper notes one way that scholars, educators, students, and parents can draw on this tool of racial resistance to accept the current racial reality, uncover racially oppressive schooling practices, and highlight strategies of survival through fugitive acts.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80727797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221139535
Anjanette N. Vaidya, Dan Battey
Background: Although large-scale research over the last 15 years demonstrates the positive effects of Black teachers for Black students on various student outcomes, these studies focus on average effects. This leaves space to examine classroom practices to detail how the positive effects may be realized through the everyday interactions between Black teachers and their Black students, specifically in mathematics. To conceptualize the mathematics classroom we draw on hooks’s (2001) concept of “Homeplace” as a site where one is humanized in resistance to broader contexts of power, as a “haven” free from negative dominant discourses. Focus of Study: This research documents the classroom practices of successful Black mathematics teachers who are affirming students’ identities through their classroom practices: How do successful Black mathematics teachers enact affirming mathematics classrooms with their Black students? Setting: This research was a secondary analysis of videos collected as part of the Gates-funded Understanding Teaching Quality (UTQ) project. All of the schools in the UTQ study were located in one metropolitan area. Case Study Selection: The study used MANOVA to quantitatively select teachers based on mathematics achievement and quality of relational interactions. Two teachers were selected and, although not part of the selection criteria, both mathematics teachers identified as Black. Research Design: The study used a case study design to describe the mathematics practices of two Black teachers. Data Collection and Analysis: The dataset included four lessons per teacher with two cameras for each lesson. Open coding was used to identify the practices used by teachers drawing on Homeplace as an orienting concept. Findings: The classrooms enacted Homeplace through affirming students’ humanity and communicating a sense of belonging in three ways: building collective responsibility for the mathematics, framing students as mathematically capable, and relating to students’ lives. In addition to the themes, undercurrents of care, humor, praise, and the use of Black Language were clearly visible. Conclusions: Although the classrooms did not display the sociopolitical consciousness foundational to culturally relevant pedagogy, the Black teachers did create an environment consistent with Homeplace. Through cultivating a classroom that affirmed Black students’ humanity and dignity and communicated to them a sense of belonging, they resisted negative racialized narratives and increased students’ mathematics achievement.
{"title":"Homeplace: Black Teachers Creating Space for Black Students in Mathematics Classrooms","authors":"Anjanette N. Vaidya, Dan Battey","doi":"10.1177/01614681221139535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221139535","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Although large-scale research over the last 15 years demonstrates the positive effects of Black teachers for Black students on various student outcomes, these studies focus on average effects. This leaves space to examine classroom practices to detail how the positive effects may be realized through the everyday interactions between Black teachers and their Black students, specifically in mathematics. To conceptualize the mathematics classroom we draw on hooks’s (2001) concept of “Homeplace” as a site where one is humanized in resistance to broader contexts of power, as a “haven” free from negative dominant discourses. Focus of Study: This research documents the classroom practices of successful Black mathematics teachers who are affirming students’ identities through their classroom practices: How do successful Black mathematics teachers enact affirming mathematics classrooms with their Black students? Setting: This research was a secondary analysis of videos collected as part of the Gates-funded Understanding Teaching Quality (UTQ) project. All of the schools in the UTQ study were located in one metropolitan area. Case Study Selection: The study used MANOVA to quantitatively select teachers based on mathematics achievement and quality of relational interactions. Two teachers were selected and, although not part of the selection criteria, both mathematics teachers identified as Black. Research Design: The study used a case study design to describe the mathematics practices of two Black teachers. Data Collection and Analysis: The dataset included four lessons per teacher with two cameras for each lesson. Open coding was used to identify the practices used by teachers drawing on Homeplace as an orienting concept. Findings: The classrooms enacted Homeplace through affirming students’ humanity and communicating a sense of belonging in three ways: building collective responsibility for the mathematics, framing students as mathematically capable, and relating to students’ lives. In addition to the themes, undercurrents of care, humor, praise, and the use of Black Language were clearly visible. Conclusions: Although the classrooms did not display the sociopolitical consciousness foundational to culturally relevant pedagogy, the Black teachers did create an environment consistent with Homeplace. Through cultivating a classroom that affirmed Black students’ humanity and dignity and communicated to them a sense of belonging, they resisted negative racialized narratives and increased students’ mathematics achievement.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85726946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221143548
Meghan Comstock, A. Edgerton, Laura Desimone
Background/Context: Instructional policy aims to shift the nature of teaching and learning. Decades of policy studies have highlighted the challenges inherent in these aims and the conditions necessary to support such change, including a robust infrastructure to support teacher learning. Further, teachers themselves must perceive and experience their policy environment to be supportive of calls to shift instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the connection between teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments and their instructional practices over time, in the context of college-and-career-readiness (CCR) standards implementation. While conducted in the context of standards implementation, our findings apply to supporting instructional change through policy more broadly. Setting: We examine implementation of CCR standards in two unique state contexts: Texas and Ohio. These states represent important differences in demographics and in their approaches to CCR standards implementation over time. Research Design: We use a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on state-representative teacher survey data at two points in time (allowing for a trend analysis to understand how teachers’ perceptions and experiences evolve), longitudinal interview data with state education leaders, and interview data with educators in one case study district in each state. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys measured teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments, as well as their self-reported instructional practices. Interviews focused on understanding state- and district-level policies, guidance, and resources, and educators’ enactment of standards. Survey analysis included descriptive analysis of patterns over time and hierarchical linear modeling. To unpack broad-based survey patterns, we coded qualitative data and developed assertions based on emergent patterns. Findings/Results: We found that Texas teachers agreed more strongly than Ohio teachers that their policy environment had aligned, specific, and stable resources, as well as accountability mechanisms in place. Specificity of guidance and resources for standards implementation predicted teachers’ use of standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. These patterns reflected each state’s approach to policy implementation: a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, compared with fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, aspects of teachers’ local context—in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning—limited teachers’ ability to engage in state-developed guidance. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our study offers enduring lessons about how to establish the policy conditions necessary to support teachers to change instruction. Findings suggest a need for states to develop resources that clarify instructional shifts for teachers, and districts must balance these to
{"title":"Connecting Policy to Practice: How State and Local Policy Environments Relate to Teachers’ Instruction","authors":"Meghan Comstock, A. Edgerton, Laura Desimone","doi":"10.1177/01614681221143548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221143548","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: Instructional policy aims to shift the nature of teaching and learning. Decades of policy studies have highlighted the challenges inherent in these aims and the conditions necessary to support such change, including a robust infrastructure to support teacher learning. Further, teachers themselves must perceive and experience their policy environment to be supportive of calls to shift instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the connection between teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments and their instructional practices over time, in the context of college-and-career-readiness (CCR) standards implementation. While conducted in the context of standards implementation, our findings apply to supporting instructional change through policy more broadly. Setting: We examine implementation of CCR standards in two unique state contexts: Texas and Ohio. These states represent important differences in demographics and in their approaches to CCR standards implementation over time. Research Design: We use a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on state-representative teacher survey data at two points in time (allowing for a trend analysis to understand how teachers’ perceptions and experiences evolve), longitudinal interview data with state education leaders, and interview data with educators in one case study district in each state. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys measured teachers’ perceptions of their policy environments, as well as their self-reported instructional practices. Interviews focused on understanding state- and district-level policies, guidance, and resources, and educators’ enactment of standards. Survey analysis included descriptive analysis of patterns over time and hierarchical linear modeling. To unpack broad-based survey patterns, we coded qualitative data and developed assertions based on emergent patterns. Findings/Results: We found that Texas teachers agreed more strongly than Ohio teachers that their policy environment had aligned, specific, and stable resources, as well as accountability mechanisms in place. Specificity of guidance and resources for standards implementation predicted teachers’ use of standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. These patterns reflected each state’s approach to policy implementation: a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, compared with fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, aspects of teachers’ local context—in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning—limited teachers’ ability to engage in state-developed guidance. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our study offers enduring lessons about how to establish the policy conditions necessary to support teachers to change instruction. Findings suggest a need for states to develop resources that clarify instructional shifts for teachers, and districts must balance these to","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89933973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221142536
Kathryn L. Kirchgasler, Ayşe Yolcu
Background and Context: Racialized disparities in curricular tracking have long been ascribed to narrow tests that create a hierarchy of perceived ability. Consequently, teachers are urged to reject deficit views of ability and embrace more expansive techniques to reveal and respond to the real-life needs of students, especially those from minoritized groups. Paradoxically, these tools, upheld as equity strategies today, had prior careers racializing populations along a hierarchy of perceived needs. That hierarchy, which gave a humanitarian basis for curricular tracking, continues to produce racializing effects today. Purpose: This article rethinks how teachers are taught to distinguish the real-life needs of students from marginalized communities. As a history of the present, it examines how demographic distinctions in health-related needs emerged historically and became tied to lower track science and mathematics instruction. We ask: To what extent do current strategies persist in dividing populations and prescribing distinct pedagogies? Have the normalizing impulses of past tools been removed or rearticulated in recent reforms that promote educational and health equity? Research Design: We first analyzed articles reviewed as exemplary of culturally responsive science and mathematics education to identify techniques recommended to uncover students’ real-life needs. Next, we compared these techniques with similar tools promoted in early 20th-century U.S. science and mathematics education journals, when these fields began distinguishing types of students and matching them with distinct tiers of instruction. Conclusions: Despite key shifts over the century (e.g., from treating inherent pathologies to redressing inequities), similar tools operate as humanitarian techniques today. That is, they classify populations as having “immediate needs” for intervention in daily life that preempt “future needs” for academic preparation. The resulting hierarchy of perceived needs orders students and subject matter from applied relevance to abstract rigor. This yields four dangers: (1) positing target students and families as not-yet-capable of self-direction, (2) prioritizing for target groups an applied and often lower prestige curriculum with consequences for their academic trajectories, (3) depoliticizing systemic inequities as problems of attitude adjustment, and (4) depoliticizing mainstream science and mathematics education by isolating sociopolitical concerns as compensatory interventions. We argue that school science and mathematics are not unique in these respects but epitomize risks present whenever social scientific tools offer an ostensibly neutral basis for seeing and sorting difference.
{"title":"“Real-Life Needs”: How Humanitarian Techniques Produce Hierarchies of Science and Mathematics Education","authors":"Kathryn L. Kirchgasler, Ayşe Yolcu","doi":"10.1177/01614681221142536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221142536","url":null,"abstract":"Background and Context: Racialized disparities in curricular tracking have long been ascribed to narrow tests that create a hierarchy of perceived ability. Consequently, teachers are urged to reject deficit views of ability and embrace more expansive techniques to reveal and respond to the real-life needs of students, especially those from minoritized groups. Paradoxically, these tools, upheld as equity strategies today, had prior careers racializing populations along a hierarchy of perceived needs. That hierarchy, which gave a humanitarian basis for curricular tracking, continues to produce racializing effects today. Purpose: This article rethinks how teachers are taught to distinguish the real-life needs of students from marginalized communities. As a history of the present, it examines how demographic distinctions in health-related needs emerged historically and became tied to lower track science and mathematics instruction. We ask: To what extent do current strategies persist in dividing populations and prescribing distinct pedagogies? Have the normalizing impulses of past tools been removed or rearticulated in recent reforms that promote educational and health equity? Research Design: We first analyzed articles reviewed as exemplary of culturally responsive science and mathematics education to identify techniques recommended to uncover students’ real-life needs. Next, we compared these techniques with similar tools promoted in early 20th-century U.S. science and mathematics education journals, when these fields began distinguishing types of students and matching them with distinct tiers of instruction. Conclusions: Despite key shifts over the century (e.g., from treating inherent pathologies to redressing inequities), similar tools operate as humanitarian techniques today. That is, they classify populations as having “immediate needs” for intervention in daily life that preempt “future needs” for academic preparation. The resulting hierarchy of perceived needs orders students and subject matter from applied relevance to abstract rigor. This yields four dangers: (1) positing target students and families as not-yet-capable of self-direction, (2) prioritizing for target groups an applied and often lower prestige curriculum with consequences for their academic trajectories, (3) depoliticizing systemic inequities as problems of attitude adjustment, and (4) depoliticizing mainstream science and mathematics education by isolating sociopolitical concerns as compensatory interventions. We argue that school science and mathematics are not unique in these respects but epitomize risks present whenever social scientific tools offer an ostensibly neutral basis for seeing and sorting difference.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73653903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221140963
Jonee Wilson
Background: The field of mathematics education has made progress toward generating a set of instructional practices that could support improvements in the learning opportunities made available to groups of students who historically have been underserved and marginalized. Studies that contribute to this growing body of work are often conducted in learning environments that are framed as “successful.” As a researcher who is concerned with issues of equity and who acknowledges the importance of closely attending to the quality of the mathematical activity in which students are being asked to engage, my stance on “successful learning environments” pulls from both Gutiérrez’s descriptions of what characterizes classrooms as aiming for equity and the emphasis on the importance of conceptually oriented goals for student learning that is outlined in documents like the Standards. Though as a field we are growing in our knowledge of practices that support these successful learning environments, this knowledge has not yet been reflected in many of the observational tools, rubrics, and protocols used to study these environments. In addition, there is a growing need to develop empirically grounded ways of attending to the extent to which the practices that are being outlined in research literature actually contribute to the “success” of these learning environments. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore one way of meeting this growing need by describing the complex work of developing a set of classroom observation rubrics (the Equity and Access Rubrics for Mathematics Instruction, EAR-MI) designed to support efforts in identifying and observing critical features of classrooms characterized as having potential for “success.” In developing the rubrics, I took as my starting place findings from an analysis that compared a set of classrooms that were characterized as demonstrating aspects of successful learning environments and a set of classrooms that were not characterized as successful. This paper not only describes the process of developing the rubrics, but also outlines some of the qualitative differences that distinguished more and less effective examples of the practices the rubrics are designed to capture. Research Design: In designing the rubrics, I engaged in multiple cycles of qualitative analyses of video data collected from a large-scale study. Specifically, I iteratively designed, tested, and revised the developing rubrics while consistently collaborating with, consulting with, and receiving feedback from different experts in the field of education. Conclusions: Although I fully acknowledge and recognize that there are several tensions and limitations of this work, I argue that developing rubrics like the EAR-MI is still worthwhile. One reason that I give for continuing these types of efforts is that it contributes to the work of breaking down forms of practice into components and identifying key aspects of specific practices that are cr
{"title":"Initial Steps in Developing Classroom Observation Rubrics Designed Around Instructional Practices that Support Equity and Access in Classrooms with Potential for “Success”","authors":"Jonee Wilson","doi":"10.1177/01614681221140963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221140963","url":null,"abstract":"Background: The field of mathematics education has made progress toward generating a set of instructional practices that could support improvements in the learning opportunities made available to groups of students who historically have been underserved and marginalized. Studies that contribute to this growing body of work are often conducted in learning environments that are framed as “successful.” As a researcher who is concerned with issues of equity and who acknowledges the importance of closely attending to the quality of the mathematical activity in which students are being asked to engage, my stance on “successful learning environments” pulls from both Gutiérrez’s descriptions of what characterizes classrooms as aiming for equity and the emphasis on the importance of conceptually oriented goals for student learning that is outlined in documents like the Standards. Though as a field we are growing in our knowledge of practices that support these successful learning environments, this knowledge has not yet been reflected in many of the observational tools, rubrics, and protocols used to study these environments. In addition, there is a growing need to develop empirically grounded ways of attending to the extent to which the practices that are being outlined in research literature actually contribute to the “success” of these learning environments. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore one way of meeting this growing need by describing the complex work of developing a set of classroom observation rubrics (the Equity and Access Rubrics for Mathematics Instruction, EAR-MI) designed to support efforts in identifying and observing critical features of classrooms characterized as having potential for “success.” In developing the rubrics, I took as my starting place findings from an analysis that compared a set of classrooms that were characterized as demonstrating aspects of successful learning environments and a set of classrooms that were not characterized as successful. This paper not only describes the process of developing the rubrics, but also outlines some of the qualitative differences that distinguished more and less effective examples of the practices the rubrics are designed to capture. Research Design: In designing the rubrics, I engaged in multiple cycles of qualitative analyses of video data collected from a large-scale study. Specifically, I iteratively designed, tested, and revised the developing rubrics while consistently collaborating with, consulting with, and receiving feedback from different experts in the field of education. Conclusions: Although I fully acknowledge and recognize that there are several tensions and limitations of this work, I argue that developing rubrics like the EAR-MI is still worthwhile. One reason that I give for continuing these types of efforts is that it contributes to the work of breaking down forms of practice into components and identifying key aspects of specific practices that are cr","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84992010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221142535
Arlo Kempf
Background/Context: Unconscious racial bias (URB) can be a pernicious form of racism. In light of increased awareness of and research on the subject, URB work has become a key focus of equity work in health care, education, and corporate contexts as part of broader calls for racial justice. In Canada, targeting URB in education has become a policy priority at the national, provincial, and school board levels. The role of individual and organizational URB is now widely recognized in policy as central to equitable outcomes in schooling; however, research is limited on how to engage these forms of racism in educational contexts. Prevailing approaches to URB work in schools often include truncated one-off workshops, which leave unaddressed the connections between the individual racial biases, and the operations of white supremacy and racism at the institutional, systemic, and structural levels. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: While URB is increasingly well-understood by social psychologists, there has been limited engagement from critical scholars working in areas such as critical race theory (CRT), anti-colonialism, and critical whiteness studies—despite the popularity of interrogating URB as an anti-racism strategy in education. CRT in education has laid bare and problematized the central function of schooling in the safeguarding and management of white supremacy. This project emerged from a dual recognition of URB as a productive entry point for racial awareness and anti-racism work, alongside a significant concern about the failure of mainstream URB discourse to address structural racism and white supremacy—masking at times the deeper ways that Euro-colonial racism underpins social relations in contemporary U.S., Canadian, European, and other contexts. This work seeks to address these limitations in the design of the study through deep work with participants. Specifically, the study sought to understand better the impacts of reading critical texts focusing on systemic, structural, and institutional racism on teachers’ understandings of their own racial biases, as well as teachers’ perspectives on the impacts of reading critical texts in terms of their professional practices. Research Design: This article reports on the findings of a 10-month study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, focusing on critical approaches to racial bias mitigation in education. In addition to asking participants to enact a series of URB mitigation strategies developed in the field of social psychology, this study also required participants to read and reflect on one of the following critical anti-racism nonfiction texts: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (2018); Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard (2017); Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School, edited by Mica Pollock (2008); Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Resid
{"title":"Toward Deeper Unconscious Racial Bias Work in Education","authors":"Arlo Kempf","doi":"10.1177/01614681221142535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221142535","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Context: Unconscious racial bias (URB) can be a pernicious form of racism. In light of increased awareness of and research on the subject, URB work has become a key focus of equity work in health care, education, and corporate contexts as part of broader calls for racial justice. In Canada, targeting URB in education has become a policy priority at the national, provincial, and school board levels. The role of individual and organizational URB is now widely recognized in policy as central to equitable outcomes in schooling; however, research is limited on how to engage these forms of racism in educational contexts. Prevailing approaches to URB work in schools often include truncated one-off workshops, which leave unaddressed the connections between the individual racial biases, and the operations of white supremacy and racism at the institutional, systemic, and structural levels. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: While URB is increasingly well-understood by social psychologists, there has been limited engagement from critical scholars working in areas such as critical race theory (CRT), anti-colonialism, and critical whiteness studies—despite the popularity of interrogating URB as an anti-racism strategy in education. CRT in education has laid bare and problematized the central function of schooling in the safeguarding and management of white supremacy. This project emerged from a dual recognition of URB as a productive entry point for racial awareness and anti-racism work, alongside a significant concern about the failure of mainstream URB discourse to address structural racism and white supremacy—masking at times the deeper ways that Euro-colonial racism underpins social relations in contemporary U.S., Canadian, European, and other contexts. This work seeks to address these limitations in the design of the study through deep work with participants. Specifically, the study sought to understand better the impacts of reading critical texts focusing on systemic, structural, and institutional racism on teachers’ understandings of their own racial biases, as well as teachers’ perspectives on the impacts of reading critical texts in terms of their professional practices. Research Design: This article reports on the findings of a 10-month study with secondary teachers in Toronto, Canada, focusing on critical approaches to racial bias mitigation in education. In addition to asking participants to enact a series of URB mitigation strategies developed in the field of social psychology, this study also required participants to read and reflect on one of the following critical anti-racism nonfiction texts: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (2018); Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard (2017); Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School, edited by Mica Pollock (2008); Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Resid","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79585351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221139536
R. Berry
There is a significant body of research in mathematics education suggesting that historically excluded learners (Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and poor) experience devaluation, inequities, exclusion, and violence (Berry, 2008; Gutiérrez, 2002; Gutstein, 2003; Martin, 2015; McGee & Martin, 2011). Research, policies, and reforms in education “[have] been violent to marginalized peoples who are represented by perspectives that are neither kind to their cultural worldview nor accurate regarding their priorities” (Leonardo, 2013, p. 603). This commentary unpacks how the four articles in this special issue prioritize historically excluded learners’ cultural worldviews. Specifically, this commentary focuses on practices across the four articles that respond to historically excluded learners’ mathematical, social, and cultural needs.
{"title":"Connecting Discretionary Spaces to Mathematics Teaching Practices and Systemic Violence of Historically Excluded Learners","authors":"R. Berry","doi":"10.1177/01614681221139536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221139536","url":null,"abstract":"There is a significant body of research in mathematics education suggesting that historically excluded learners (Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and poor) experience devaluation, inequities, exclusion, and violence (Berry, 2008; Gutiérrez, 2002; Gutstein, 2003; Martin, 2015; McGee & Martin, 2011). Research, policies, and reforms in education “[have] been violent to marginalized peoples who are represented by perspectives that are neither kind to their cultural worldview nor accurate regarding their priorities” (Leonardo, 2013, p. 603). This commentary unpacks how the four articles in this special issue prioritize historically excluded learners’ cultural worldviews. Specifically, this commentary focuses on practices across the four articles that respond to historically excluded learners’ mathematical, social, and cultural needs.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89824898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221139532
N. Johnson, M. Franke, Angela C. Turrou
Background: Current efforts to promote reasoning, problem solving, and discussion are often framed as advancing equity, but scholarship suggests individual students’ opportunities to learn can vary considerably in classrooms that attempt to take up these approaches to teaching mathematics. Noticing students’ mathematical strengths and positioning their contributions as competent is among aspects of instruction associated with more equitable learning outcomes for students from marginalized groups, but research has yet to comprehensively examine the range and nuance of this aspect of teachers’ practice in classrooms that feature broad distributions of participation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ instructional practice with respect to assigning competence in two mathematics classrooms that demonstrated high levels of student participation. We investigated the kinds of situations in which teachers positioned students as competent, and the ways assigning competence opened opportunities to participate. Setting: Data were collected at a public elementary school in a culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse neighborhood in southern California. Participants: Participants included two teachers and 45 students from two third-grade classrooms. Teachers had participated in ongoing professional development focused on leveraging children’s mathematical thinking in instruction. Research Design: We drew from qualitative methods for analyzing video to investigate classroom interactions from 12 mathematics lessons. Data sources included video recordings, transcripts, and student work. We used Studiocode software to parse each lesson into phases and episodes. Drawing from previous studies, we identified a subset of episodes in which teachers explicitly positioned a student’s contribution as competent. An iterative process of coding and discussion was used to analyze patterns with respect to student participation, teacher support, and the unfolding of rights and obligations related to participating in mathematical activity. Findings: Analyses revealed different kinds of situations in which students participated in mathematically substantive ways (in terms of providing detailed explanations of their ideas or engaging with the details of a peer’s idea) and teachers positioned their contributions as competent. These situations included highlighting, clarifying, and amplifying contributions; supporting the specificity of student contributions; recognizing emergent ideas; and validating unprompted attention to mathematical details. Assignments of competence emerged in ways that were integrated into teachers’ ongoing efforts to surface and make explicit the details of their mathematical ideas, while also broadening the kinds of contributions students could make to joint mathematical work. Conclusions: Helping students to know what it could look and sound like to participate in the moment while recognizing a wide range of contributi
{"title":"Making Competence Explicit: Helping Students Take Up Opportunities to Engage in Math Together","authors":"N. Johnson, M. Franke, Angela C. Turrou","doi":"10.1177/01614681221139532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221139532","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Current efforts to promote reasoning, problem solving, and discussion are often framed as advancing equity, but scholarship suggests individual students’ opportunities to learn can vary considerably in classrooms that attempt to take up these approaches to teaching mathematics. Noticing students’ mathematical strengths and positioning their contributions as competent is among aspects of instruction associated with more equitable learning outcomes for students from marginalized groups, but research has yet to comprehensively examine the range and nuance of this aspect of teachers’ practice in classrooms that feature broad distributions of participation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ instructional practice with respect to assigning competence in two mathematics classrooms that demonstrated high levels of student participation. We investigated the kinds of situations in which teachers positioned students as competent, and the ways assigning competence opened opportunities to participate. Setting: Data were collected at a public elementary school in a culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse neighborhood in southern California. Participants: Participants included two teachers and 45 students from two third-grade classrooms. Teachers had participated in ongoing professional development focused on leveraging children’s mathematical thinking in instruction. Research Design: We drew from qualitative methods for analyzing video to investigate classroom interactions from 12 mathematics lessons. Data sources included video recordings, transcripts, and student work. We used Studiocode software to parse each lesson into phases and episodes. Drawing from previous studies, we identified a subset of episodes in which teachers explicitly positioned a student’s contribution as competent. An iterative process of coding and discussion was used to analyze patterns with respect to student participation, teacher support, and the unfolding of rights and obligations related to participating in mathematical activity. Findings: Analyses revealed different kinds of situations in which students participated in mathematically substantive ways (in terms of providing detailed explanations of their ideas or engaging with the details of a peer’s idea) and teachers positioned their contributions as competent. These situations included highlighting, clarifying, and amplifying contributions; supporting the specificity of student contributions; recognizing emergent ideas; and validating unprompted attention to mathematical details. Assignments of competence emerged in ways that were integrated into teachers’ ongoing efforts to surface and make explicit the details of their mathematical ideas, while also broadening the kinds of contributions students could make to joint mathematical work. Conclusions: Helping students to know what it could look and sound like to participate in the moment while recognizing a wide range of contributi","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90244689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221139534
Brittany L. Marshall, Aziel O. Rosado, Dan Battey
Background: Traditional mathematics logics lead to inequities that reproduce narratives such as the myths of racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematical ability (Hottinger, 2016; Martin, 2009). Black girls sit at the bottom of both racialized and gendered hierarchies; however, research over the past decade has provided evidence that Black teachers challenge these hierarchies for their Black students. Therefore, we show how two teachers work against these logics to create space for their Black girl students to flourish as learners and producers of mathematics. Focus of Study: This research documents the logics that lead to supportive spaces for Black girls in two Black mathematics teachers’ classrooms: What are the supportive logics of successful mathematics teachers who support Black girls’ achievement in middle school classrooms? Setting: This research was a secondary analysis of videos collected as part of the Gates-funded Understanding Teaching Quality (UTQ) project. Case Study Selection: The study used MANOVA to quantitatively select teachers based on change in mathematics achievement. Two teachers were selected based on number and percentage of Black girls in the top 5% of change in achievement across the dataset. Although not part of the selection criteria, both mathematics teachers identified as Black. Research Design: The study used a case study design to describe the mathematics practices and the logics that they supported for the two successful Black mathematics teachers. Data Collection and Analysis: The dataset included four lessons per teacher with two cameras for each lesson. Open coding was used to identify the practices used by teachers drawing on logics as an orienting concept. Findings: Interestingly, both classrooms were fairly procedural in their mathematics focus; however, the classrooms challenged logics of individualism, racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematics ability, and carceral pedagogy. Teachers supported Black student autonomy in terms of both behavior and intellectual contribution, and specifically positioned Black girls as experts and highlighted collective responsibility for peers’ mathematics learning. Conclusions: Although the classrooms did not display the cultural competence or sociopolitical consciousness foundational to culturally relevant pedagogy, the Black teachers did challenge traditional logics found in mathematics classrooms. Through a focus on collectivity, autonomy, and competence, the relational ways in which teachers positioned Black girls ran counter to logics that too often frame them as incapable mathematically.
{"title":"Successful Black Mathematics Teachers Building Collectivity, Autonomy, and Mathematics Expertise of Their Black Girls","authors":"Brittany L. Marshall, Aziel O. Rosado, Dan Battey","doi":"10.1177/01614681221139534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221139534","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Traditional mathematics logics lead to inequities that reproduce narratives such as the myths of racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematical ability (Hottinger, 2016; Martin, 2009). Black girls sit at the bottom of both racialized and gendered hierarchies; however, research over the past decade has provided evidence that Black teachers challenge these hierarchies for their Black students. Therefore, we show how two teachers work against these logics to create space for their Black girl students to flourish as learners and producers of mathematics. Focus of Study: This research documents the logics that lead to supportive spaces for Black girls in two Black mathematics teachers’ classrooms: What are the supportive logics of successful mathematics teachers who support Black girls’ achievement in middle school classrooms? Setting: This research was a secondary analysis of videos collected as part of the Gates-funded Understanding Teaching Quality (UTQ) project. Case Study Selection: The study used MANOVA to quantitatively select teachers based on change in mathematics achievement. Two teachers were selected based on number and percentage of Black girls in the top 5% of change in achievement across the dataset. Although not part of the selection criteria, both mathematics teachers identified as Black. Research Design: The study used a case study design to describe the mathematics practices and the logics that they supported for the two successful Black mathematics teachers. Data Collection and Analysis: The dataset included four lessons per teacher with two cameras for each lesson. Open coding was used to identify the practices used by teachers drawing on logics as an orienting concept. Findings: Interestingly, both classrooms were fairly procedural in their mathematics focus; however, the classrooms challenged logics of individualism, racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematics ability, and carceral pedagogy. Teachers supported Black student autonomy in terms of both behavior and intellectual contribution, and specifically positioned Black girls as experts and highlighted collective responsibility for peers’ mathematics learning. Conclusions: Although the classrooms did not display the cultural competence or sociopolitical consciousness foundational to culturally relevant pedagogy, the Black teachers did challenge traditional logics found in mathematics classrooms. Through a focus on collectivity, autonomy, and competence, the relational ways in which teachers positioned Black girls ran counter to logics that too often frame them as incapable mathematically.","PeriodicalId":22248,"journal":{"name":"Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90194016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1177/01614681221139528
R. Cortina
This special issue is the beginning of a much larger research project to document the impact of Teachers College (TC), Columbia University, on the development of public systems of education in Latin America and around the world. The articles presented in this issue are the work of scholars focusing on the educational careers of TC graduates who returned to Latin America, analyzing how these graduates’ experiences as students in New York shaped their trajectories as educational leaders. It focuses on a highly influential initiative in TC's history, namely, the International Institute (1923– 1938), and its effects on Latin American education. In the fall of 2010, I was invited by Professor George Bond to make a presentation at the Lawrence A. Cremin Seminar and Lecture Series at Teachers College. I named my presentation “Teachers College and the Rise of Mexican Public Education.” As I prepared it, my interest in learning more about the influence of TC abroad was awakened. For that lecture, I focused only on Mexico, but I started collecting research materials and learning more about the connections between TC and Latin America. In the articles that follow, you will be able to learn in depth about Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. The research process needed to create this deepening of perspective on the history of TC and on the development of public education in Latin America is complex, given that it is difficult to conduct research on the history of TC through its own institutional archives. The TC Archive was officially closed in the 1990s, and its staff members were dispersed or terminated. Besides materials still available at TC, the research supporting these articles is based on archives in the United States, as well as foundations, education institutions, TC alumni, and distinguished educational leaders’ archives in their countries. The topics discussed in each article highlight the influence of TC on different schooling systems. Each of the articles focuses on alumni whose legacies are still pervasive in the schooling systems in their countries. Their conceptions about education
本期特刊是一个更大的研究项目的开端,该项目旨在记录哥伦比亚大学师范学院(TC)对拉丁美洲和世界各地公共教育体系发展的影响。这期的文章是学者们的研究成果,他们关注的是回到拉丁美洲的TC毕业生的教育事业,分析这些毕业生在纽约的学习经历如何塑造了他们作为教育领导者的轨迹。它侧重于TC历史上一个极具影响力的倡议,即国际学院(1923 - 1938),以及它对拉丁美洲教育的影响。2010年秋天,我受George Bond教授的邀请,在师范学院的Lawrence a . Cremin研讨会和系列讲座上做了一次演讲。我把我的演讲命名为“师范学院与墨西哥公共教育的兴起”。在我准备的过程中,我对更多地了解TC在国外的影响的兴趣被唤醒了。在那堂课上,我只关注墨西哥,但我开始收集研究资料,更多地了解TC与拉丁美洲之间的联系。在接下来的文章中,您将能够深入了解墨西哥、巴西和智利。由于很难通过其自己的机构档案来研究拉丁美洲公共教育的历史,因此需要对拉丁美洲的历史和公共教育发展进行深入的研究过程是复杂的。TC档案馆在20世纪90年代正式关闭,其工作人员被分散或解雇。除了TC现有的资料外,支持这些文章的研究是基于美国的档案,以及基金会、教育机构、TC校友和各自国家的杰出教育领袖的档案。每篇文章中讨论的主题都强调了技术教育对不同学校制度的影响。每篇文章都聚焦于校友,他们的遗产在各自国家的教育体系中仍然普遍存在。他们对教育的看法
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