Knowing the World through Mathematics: The Interconnections between Social Justice and Mathematics for Preservice Mathematics Teachers

Recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and protests in response to racialized policing practices in the United States have highlighted the need for teachers to facilitate and engage students in explorations of social justice. A case study of 11 prospective mathematics teachers (PMTs) participating in Knowing the World through Mathematics (KWM), a three-credit quantitative reasoning course centered on social justice mathematics, was conducted to determine how KWM supports PMTs’ mathematics identity development. The 11 PMTs’ weekly reflection prompts, course assignments, and preand postcourse questionnaire responses were thematically analyzed, and prominent themes were identified about their beliefs of themselves in relation to the larger mathematics community. Prominent themes included PMTs’ sharing that KWM was eye-opening to both social justice issues and new uses of mathematics, their impartial perspectives of mathematics, and a renewed urgency for taking action to teach mathematics for social justice. Throughout KWM, PMTs engaged with social justice issues while utilizing mathematics as a tool or resource to uncover social injustices. Further, PMTs suggested that mathematics can be conceptualized using different methods, specifically through social justice topics, making mathematics relevant and interesting to all students. Results indicate that KWM, alongside other equityand social justice–focused courses, will continue to be a valuable experience for PMTs to build on in their future classrooms to further expand and spread awareness to students about the powerful connection between mathematics and social justice.