Introduction

Traditionally mathematics teacher education has focused on providing preservice teachers with the content and pedagogy needed in the classroom (see, for example, Hill et al., 2008). However, recent calls for equity to be given more importance in mathematics teacher education (see, for example, Equity in Mathematics Teacher Education from the US-based Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) (2015)) require an expansion of what should be included. Following calls in other subject areas, such as teaching English as a second language (Linville, 2020), we present an argument for mathematics teacher education to develop preservice teachers’ understandings about being an advocate in their future, language-diverse, mathematics classrooms. We focus our discussion on the role of being an advocate in and for language-diverse classrooms, because of the documented difficulties in raising language diversity in mathematics teacher education (see, for example, Eikset & Meaney, 2018; Kasari & Meaney, 2023; Rangnes & Eikset, 2019). Our aim for arguing for the inclusion of the role of advocate is to ensure that equity cannot just be an adaption of what is already provided. Without a major rethinking by ourselves and others, the inclusion of equity into teacher education could become nothing more than a platitude, which would be unlikely to shift issues of power and privilege in mathematics education (see, for example, Meaney, 2018).

Advocacy or advocating appears frequently in discussions about equity in mathematics education (see, for example, Martin, 2003; Tan & Kastberg, 2017; Matthews et al., 2022), although rarely in mathematics teacher education. For example, Martin (2003) stated that for equity issues to be attended to and consequently lead to changes in classrooms, then mathematics education research must include advocacy, even if some do not perceive it as legitimate. However, what it means to be an advocate and how to take on an advocating role in regard to equity is generally not defined. Instead, understandings about advocacy and being an advocate are discussed in other ways. Consequently, we take as our starting point the Cambridge Dictionary’s (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/advocate) definition of an advocate as:

  • someone who speaks for, supports, or represents a person or group of people who may need extra help or protection

  • someone who publicly supports or recommends an idea, a policy, etc.

From this starting point, we reflect on what it means to be an advocate as a mathematics teacher in language-diverse classrooms. Following the editorial by Matthews et al. (2022) about mathematics education research in this article, we have chosen to explore the role of being an advocate and how to raise it in mathematics teacher education from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Matthews et al. (2022) suggested that while a theorist produces theories about equity, this is a slow process, perhaps too slow to ensure that equity occurs. On the other hand, an advocate will immediately promote and advocate for equity, while acting against unfairness and suppression. However, this raised the question, “Does adopting the advocate’s concern for speed and for the concrete run the risk of getting it wrong, of mischaracterizing equity?” (p. 347). A similar concern was raised in discussions about policy advocacy (Gen & Wright, 2013). Therefore, reflection is needed on how to integrate theoretical understandings about the role of being an advocate with practical knowledge from introducing the role of being an advocate into mathematics teacher education. In this article, we do not promote that the preservice teachers should be taught to advocate for a specific idea. Instead, we discuss what the advocate role as part of being mathematics teachers in language-diverse classrooms could include.

McGraw et al.’s (2023) research on preservice teachers’ views on teaching in language-diverse mathematics classrooms highlighted the importance of their teacher education experiences. Although the teacher education programmes, which were in focus, incorporated equity aspects, the preservice teachers did not value all aspects or know how to implement them, given other demands which they considered to be more important in the classrooms. Similarly, early on in our large research project, Learning to teach argumentation for critical mathematics education in multilingual classrooms (LATACME) at the Bergen campus of Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, we had included being an advocate into expectations about the teachers that we were educating (see Lange & Meaney, 2019). However, as had also been found by Fernandes (2020), it seemed difficult to support preservice teachers to consider how to teach mathematics in language-diverse classrooms, beyond improving students’ fluency in the language of instruction. This was the case, even when preservice teachers could see language-diverse students performing as competent learners (see, for example, Rangnes & Meaney, 2021). The inclusion of the role of being an advocate required us to determine more specifically what this role required of teachers and to understand better how we, as teacher educators, could discuss it in mathematics teacher education, both within our programme and more widely.

As the role of being an advocate seemed new to mathematics teacher education, we have chosen to structure this article around Appelbaum’s (2018) strategy for changing mathematics education. This strategy allowed us to reflect on the challenge of determining what the role of being an advocate involved, “while maintaining a strong commitment to ethical principles of inclusion, diversity, human recognition and dignity” (p. 54). Rather than focusing on overcoming the problems with the existing forms of mathematics teacher education, Appelbaum’s (2018) highlighted the need to change ourselves as mathematics teacher educators and researchers. This was important as our aim was to broaden reflections, both by ourselves, as well as by other teacher educators, on how equity could be included in mathematics education. As well, this strategy provided possibilities to describe theoretically what being an advocate in language-diverse mathematics classrooms could be and to consider the practical challenges of integrating it into mathematics teacher education. Appelbaum’s strategy included four components:

  1. A.

    Use language both inside and outside of the common discourse;

  2. B.

    Make clear to ourselves and others that these new languages do not confront existing pedagogical terminologies, but rather live alongside them;

  3. C.

    Carry out research and practice grounded in the new languages, thus transforming the focus and meaning for the research and practice, still maintaining support for current practices; the power of the new discourses changes how we understand ourselves and the worlds of mathematics education in which we take part;

  4. D.

    Finally, describe for ourselves and others how the new research projects and practices have shifted and altered relations of power, privilege, recognition, dignity, authority, knowledge, and mathematics. (p. 55–56)

Following this structure, in the first section about component A, we explore the aspects of being an advocate which have previously been identified in general education research, as well as in mathematics education research. In the second section to do with component B, we describe how these aspects connect to existing understandings about the knowledge and skills preservice teachers are expected to gain from mathematics teacher education about language-diverse classrooms. We use the framework designed for the LATACME project (Lange & Meaney, 2019) to show how the role of being an advocate sits alongside existing understandings about what teachers need to know about teaching mathematics and what they need to learn from their students. In section C, we discuss examples from the research undertaken in the LATACME project to illustrate aspects of the role of being advocate which could be discussed in mathematics teacher education. In the final section D, we explore how this theoretical and practical exploration of being an advocate could lead to equity being more visible in mathematics teacher education and how this could provide insights into “power, privilege, recognition, dignity, authority, knowledge, and mathematics” (Appelbaum 2018, p. 54).

Component A: advocacy both inside and outside of the common discourse

As noted in the previous section, although advocacy has been connected to equity issues in mathematics education, it remains largely undefined. Thus, in Appelbaum’s (2018) terms, advocacy can be considered the new language in relationship to mathematics teacher education. Thus, there is a need to explore theoretically what being an advocate involves. This provides insights into how this new language could contribute to and extend beyond the common or usual ways of talking about the teacher’s role in language-diverse classrooms, discussed more fully in Component B.

Advocacy appears rarely in mathematics education research. When it does, it is usually in relationship to changing policy for STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, (Velasco & Hite, 2022; Velasco et al., 2022). As part of their leadership roles, mathematics teachers were expected to speak up in support of more STEM teaching so that policy could be changed, with the ultimate aim of improving student learning. However, in many countries, such as Norway, existing laws and curricula about the rights of language-diverse students are expected to be enacted in mathematics classrooms. Therefore, to focus on policy change seems a somewhat narrow view of advocacy, if the goal is to shift existing practices to do with language-diverse classroom in mathematics education.

Instead, it may be more relevant for teachers to advocate to ensure existing policies are enacted. However, this may not be something that preservice teachers see as their role. In reviewing previous research, McGraw et al. (2023) noted that preservice teachers were generally tolerant of general ideas about incorporating cultural differences into their mathematics classrooms, but “with resistance emerging when empowerment and activism are discussed (Gay, 2010; Howard, 2010; Kitchen, 2005; Lee, 2005)” (p. 3). Felton-Koestler (2017) identified similar resistance. Earlier, de Freitas (2008) had been concerned that her preservice teachers were reluctant to move from seeing mathematics teaching as being politically neutral and, thus, not requiring a need to consider diversity. She subsequently designed and implemented a project in which equity issues were explicitly raised so that the preservice teachers would consider the socio-political influences on classroom practices and student identities. Initial research in our project showed that many of our preservice teachers held deficit perspectives about language-diverse students’ possibilities to learn mathematics because of their perceived lack of fluency in the language of instruction, Norwegian (Rangnes & Eikset, 2019; Rangnes & Meaney, 2021). Viewing students as the ones with the problem could legitimise preservice teachers’ resistance to being advocates because enacting policies would not be seen as useful. Considerations of the use of advocacy inside the common discourse resulted in us rethinking what the role of being an advocate should be incorporated into mathematics teacher education.

By examining how advocacy is used outside of mathematics education, particularly to do with second-language teaching, it is possible to elaborate on how it could be enacted, for instance, in regard the inclusion of in-class activities (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011; Haneda & Alexander, 2015; Linville, 2020) as well as beyond-classroom advocacy, such as policy enactment. Consequently, we have adopted Dubetz and de Jong’s (2011) distinction between two kinds of advocacy, identified in a review of research on the advocacy of teachers of English as a second language:

  1. (a)

    advocacy through teaching and curricular choices in the classroom, and

  2. (b)

    advocacy work beyond the classroom with colleagues, families and communities, and policy makers. (p. 251)

Although this distinction is based on where advocacy should take place, we were aware that there are other concerns. For example, Tan and Kastberg (2017) highlighted that discussions about equity often left out considerations of students with dis/abilities. Similarly, KC and Ohna (2021) made a case that diversity should not be separated into discussions about different groups. Therefore, there was a need to recognise that supporting preservice teachers to learn about being advocates in language-diverse mathematics classrooms should not result in a lack of awareness of the advocacy needs of other students. Tan and Kastberg (2017) also highlighted the importance of understandings about self-advocacy, raising the need for teachers, in our case preservice teachers, to gain an awareness about who is advocating on behalf of whom and about what. Students should not just be advocated for, as suggested in the Cambridge dictionary’s definition of being an advocate, but also should gain insights about how to advocate for themselves. Preservice teachers may need to learn how to do this in their teacher education (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011) and from working with language-diverse students and their families.

Advocacy in the classroom

Dubetz and de Jong (2011) described curricula choices which would lead to equitable access to learning opportunities as “teaching as advocacy” (p. 251) and identified it as having two components:

  1. (a)

    recognize and celebrate the linguistic and cultural resources that emergent bilinguals bring to the classroom, and

  2. (b)

    help them gain access to opportunities that society has historically denied to racial and linguistic minorities by dealing directly with the disparities created by mainstream schooling. (p. 251)

If teachers do not recognise the importance of in-class advocacy to increase opportunities for learning, then students can be situated as lacking. For example, Hilt (2017) reported how a mathematics teacher in upper secondary school became frustrated when a student was not fluent in Norwegian and lacked appropriate mathematical knowledge to complete classroom tasks. Similar stories were noted in research with teachers in the use of digital tools in multilingual mathematics classrooms (Meaney & Rangnes, 2022). Teachers’ views are based on their language ideologies, or the socially formed understandings about whether the use of multiple languages in mathematics classrooms is a right, a problem or a resource (Planas & Setati-Phakeng, 2014). In research not focused on mathematics classrooms, Norwegian preservice teachers were documented as simultaneously holding contradicting language ideologies about the languages which should be used in different situations (Iversen, 2021; Kulbrandstad, 2007). Yet, language ideologies are not the only influence on what happens in the classroom and thus could affect in-class advocacy. For example, Willey and Drake (2013) highlighted the difficulties that preservice teachers had in implementing in-class tasks in their mathematics teaching that raised socio-political issues because of other schooling expectations, such as state-mandated tests.

I et al. (2020) investigated changes in beliefs of preservice and inservice teachers to an online professional development course about language-diverse, mathematics classrooms. In their study, they focused on beliefs about students, rather than particular ways to teach. Using Aguirre and del Rosario Zavala’s (2013) description of culturally-responsive-mathematics-teaching framework of culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework, I et al. (2020) focused on if and in what ways the beliefs of teachers had changed during the online course to do with, “cognitive demand, mathematical discourse, power and participation, academic language, and cultural/community-based funds of knowledge” (p. 72). In their descriptions of each of the domains, the focus was on what occurred within a lesson and so could be considered part of in-class advocating (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011). Cognitive demand focuses on ensuring that students have opportunities to engage in in-depth exploration and analysis of mathematical concepts and reasoning. Mathematical discourse was about providing a lesson that “creates opportunities to discuss mathematics in meaningful and rigorous ways” (I et al., 2020, p. 72). In alignment with Appelbaum’s (2018) reference to changing practices, it could be said that for I et al. (2020) power and privilege are manifested in how authority for mathematical knowing is distributed in the class, through, for example, who gets called on to explain their thinking, or who makes value judgements about the correctness of responses. Understanding the impact of power and privilege is important because “students whose dominant language is not the language of instruction may withdraw from participating in whole-class discussions and defer to the students whose dominant language is that of instruction” (Planas & Civil, 2013, p. 375). To overcome the risk of a lack of participation by language-diverse students, a teacher may need to advocate in class for language-diverse students’ right to use their full range of language resources as well as enacting respectfulness of and including students’ cultures and languages in the classroom. Academic language includes understanding how to provide access to learning the language of instruction, alongside using the home languages. Funds of knowledge are about identifying relevant experiences of the students and considering if and how teachers anticipate making connections to these experiences in mathematics lessons. Of the 27 teachers (18 were preservice teachers and 9 were inservice teachers) in I et al.’s study, many shifted to more productive beliefs by the end of the course. This suggests that beliefs can change as a result of targeted teacher education, but examples of this occurring remain rare. In KC and Ohna’s (2021) study, one Norwegian preservice teacher stated, “you often talk about those challenges and needs, you probably don’t talk much about the advantages of diversity” (p. 11).

The domains that were the focus of I et al.’s (2020) study have strong overlaps with the two components that Dubetz and de Jong (2011) described as “teaching as advocacy”. Knowing about and making use of the linguistic and cultural resources of the students in the classroom is connected to all the domains, but most specifically to power and privilege and funds of knowledge. Access to educational opportunities, often denied to language-diverse students, can also be provided through I et al.’s (2020) domains, but in particular through cognitive demand, mathematical discourse and academic language support. Nevertheless, having a theoretical understanding about what the advocacy role is and knowing how to use it to shift and alter mathematics teacher practices to better incorporate language-diverse students’ full set of resources is not simple. For example, Planas and Civil (2013) described the tension between “the simultaneous need to reinforce and improve the language of instruction and that of sharing knowledge in the home dominant language” (p. 374).

Advocacy beyond the classroom

The role of being an advocate extends beyond the classroom, as “major innovation and genuine reform require aligning the efforts of all those involved in students’ mathematical development: teachers, principals, teacher educators, researchers, parents, specialist support services, school boards, policy makers, and the students themselves” (Anthony & Walshaw, 2009, p. 27). Yet, except for the work of Velasco and colleagues, little has been written about advocacy beyond the mathematics classroom, especially to do with raising issues with preservice teachers. Velasco et al. (2022) focused on policy advocacy, but Dubetz and de Jong’s (2011) highlighted that advocacy outside the second-language classroom involved more than this.

Nevertheless, preservice teachers may need opportunities to learn how be advocates at the policy level and to change unproductive political discourses. Lange (2008) and Svensson et al. (2014) showed how media discussions drawing on political rhetoric can affect the views of teachers and language-diverse students about who can learn mathematics. For preservice teachers to learn to advocate so that the premises of these discussions change, they may need to learn how to enter such debates so they can present positive stories about language-diverse students, including about their mathematical achievement.

Previous research also indicates that teachers need to know how to advocate for new curricula requirements with parents, who often influence their children’s views about mathematics, (Lange & Meaney, 2011). Civil et al. (2005) found in their study that many immigrant parents experienced a form of conflict between what their children were learning as school mathematics and what they knew from their own school experiences. With limited possibilities for parents to engage with the education system, misunderstandings can arise about the mathematical learning opportunities being offered to language-diverse students (see, for example, Lange et al., 2022; Meaney et al., 2023). Nevertheless, there remains little research about how teachers could work with their parents (Stoehr et al., 2022). Preservice teachers may not see it as their responsibility to contact parents, outside of the set parent-teacher evenings, where the focus is mostly on students’ achievements (Meaney, 2013). This can affect in-class advocacy because it places the burden on students to identify when to share their cultural knowledge in the classroom and how to discuss school mathematics at home (Lange & Meaney, 2011; Svensson et al., 2014). Therefore, there seems to be a need for teacher education to discuss how the role of being an advocate extends beyond the classroom.

In research on advocacy for teaching second language, there are some indications that teachers are more willing to advocate within classrooms than beyond, but this is dependent to some degree on contextual factors (Linville, 2020). In her study set in the USA, Linville (2020) found that the more years of teaching experience, working in middle and secondary schools and being from a diverse background contributed to teachers being more likely to take on political advocating. When none of those factors are present, as is the case with most preservice teachers in Norway, teacher educators are responsible for supporting, at least initially, mathematics preservice teachers to take on the role of being a beyond-classroom advocate.

Using previous research, we identified that the role of being an advocate could/should include: interacting as a mathematics teacher with government departments, through, for example, consultation on new policies; advocating within the system to ensure that at the school level children gain the rights for language support set out in existing policies; raising discussions in the local community, including with parents, about new approaches to teaching mathematics; raising with students how to become self-advocates; as well as providing appropriate classroom environments that provide opportunities for students to learn mathematics with dignity and respect for others’ ways of doing mathematics.

Component B: advocacy alongside teacher/learner roles of being a mathematics teacher

The next component of Appelbaum’s (2018) strategy involves considering how the role of advocate could exist alongside more established understandings about being a mathematics teacher. We, therefore, combined our theoretical definitions about what being an advocate in a language-diverse mathematics classroom could involve, alongside more traditional understandings about what teachers need to know and do to support students’ learning. To do this, we use the LATACME framework, which was developed early on in our project (Lange & Meaney, 2019). It had included the role of advocate, but did not include an extensive discussion about what the role involved. In this section, we clarify how the role of being an advocate sits alongside the more familiar roles to preservice teachers, those of teacher and learners.

In the LATACME framework, we described the roles and responsibilities that we wanted preservice teachers to gain from their teacher education (see Table 1) (Lange & Meaney, 2019). The research project investigated how to improve teacher educators’ work with preservice teachers of grades 1–7, over five years. It involved over 20 teacher educators in one or more aspects of the study to do with the implementation of: ICT in mathematics teaching; mathematical modelling; mathematical argumentation; critical mathematics education. With an overarching aim to support preservice teachers to expand their understandings about language-diverse classrooms, beyond a focus on improving students’ fluency in the language of instruction, the project was complex to implement and evaluate.

Table 1 LATACME framework (from Lange & Meaney, 2019)
Full size table

Therefore, the framework provided guidelines about the kinds of improvement that we were aiming for in our teacher education. It included the role of advocate, but alongside the more traditionally understood roles of knowing how to teach, in our case “mathematical argumentation” and “argumentation that used mathematics” (the teacher role) and learning about their students’ knowledge of mathematical argumentation as well as their interests, which might include a need for argumentation that used mathematics (the learner role). The responsibilities of a mathematics teacher included facilitating students to explore and learn mathematics and facilitating students to explore and learn about the world through mathematics. This last aspect is evident in many curricula, including the Norwegian curriculum (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2019), and is connected to classroom research on critical mathematics education (Gutstein, 2012). The LATACME framework has similarities to Felton-Koestler’s (2017) “what, whose and how” framework that was developed to study preservice teachers’ views of equitable practices in mathematics classrooms. However, the LATACME framework is designed to meet the specific needs of Norwegian mathematics teacher education.

The teacher and learner roles can be considered established expectations about what teachers would do in mathematics classrooms (see, for example, Hill et al., 2008), which have some connections to the role of being an advocate. Knowing how to integrate “cognitive demand, mathematical discourse, power and participation, academic language, and cultural/community-based funds of knowledge” (I et al., 2020, p. 72) into their teaching is part of the teacher role for both responsibilities. Therefore, in-class advocacy is connected to the teacher role, as the focus is on supporting students to achieve at high levels. Achievement is part of both responsibilities because the gatekeeping role of mathematics determines who has access to further education or to work, as well as to use mathematics to participate in society as democratic citizens (Lange & Meaney, 2019). The role of the learner in the LATACME framework entails preservice teachers learning about their future students, their cultural backgrounds, interests as well as their mathematical knowledge and skills. Although not writing about mathematics education, Athanases and Martin (2006) stated, “learning to advocate for educational equity begins with a focus on student learning” (p. 628).

Therefore, rather than seeing the roles of teacher and learner as distinct to being an in-class advocate, being an advocate provided an opportunity to highlight its importance in working in language-diverse classrooms and the effort needed to take on this role. As well, the addition of the role of advocate allowed for the inclusion of aspects of beyond-classroom advocacy, not included in the roles of being a teacher or being a learner. These were to do with advocating for changes to mathematics curricula and policy, as well as working with families and local communities to share information about what they considered important for their children’s mathematics education, as highlighted by Stoehr et al. (2022).

Component C: research and practice grounded in the new languages

In this section, we discuss how our understandings from the theoretical perspectives connected to practical issues in our teacher education, enabling us to see our practices from new perspectives as well as to extend our understandings of in-class and beyond-classroom advocacy. To do this, we use empirical material from three data sets collected over 5 years as part of the LATACME project: results from a survey of preservice teachers given at the beginning and end of their compulsory mathematics education courses for three years; transcripts from workshops, with preservice teachers at different points in their teacher education; and preservice teachers’ assignments about their practicum experiences from two compulsory, mathematics education courses about designing and implementing mathematics tasks, which included ICT and mathematical modelling respectfully.

As our aim is to discuss the role of being an advocate from different perspectives, we do not present an empirical analysis of the data, as these have been presented elsewhere. Instead, the examples are chosen to provide insights, highlighted as important in Components A and B: advocating to ensure that students gain the language support set out in existing policies; discussing mathematics education with parents; raising with students how to become self-advocates; providing appropriate classroom environments for students to learn mathematics with dignity and respect for others’ ways of doing mathematics.

The survey was designed at the beginning of the project to identify preservice teachers’ attitudes and knowledge about the different strands of LATACME, by providing a set of statements and asking them to respond using a Likert scale (Meaney, et al., 2021). The questionnaire was completed by three cohorts of preservice teachers of teachers for Grades 1–7. In this article, we discuss the responses to Likert-scale statements about language-diverse classrooms by the final cohort, collected in the first month of their second compulsory semester of mathematics education (September, 2022).

The video recordings discussed in this article were from workshops of the first author, who as an emergent bilingual in Norwegian, taught in English. The workshops were with preservice teachers in the first (one workshop), fourth (two workshops) and fifth year of their teacher education (one workshop). In each workshop, the video recorder was focused on the front of the room, with the preservice teachers’ voices only being captured, in alignment with their consent. The videos showed the projector screen and some of what Tamsin did. In some workshops, some of the preservice teachers agreed to have their group work audio-recorded. The video- and the audio-recordings were transcribed.

The first-year preservice teachers’ compulsory assignment from the semester January to May, focused on their planning and implementing mathematics lessons that integrated digital tools, which included computational thinking, a recently introduced aspect of the mathematics curriculum in Norway (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2019). In August to December, the second year preservice teachers planned and implemented mathematical tasks during practicum, on mathematical modelling.

In-class advocacy

In relationship to in-class advocacy, the survey results showed that the preservice teachers often held inconsistent language ideologies. Raising some of the inconsistencies in language ideologies seemed to be more effective when specific examples of classroom scenarios were discussed in the workshops, led by teacher educators, and in practicum assignments, when preservice teachers had to make sense of what they experienced.

Survey questions

In the survey, there were several Likert-scale statements about using home languages in the mathematics classroom and that students did not need to be fluent in Norwegian to learn mathematics. The preservice teachers, in 2022, generally responded positively towards these. Of the 79 preservice teachers, who responded to the statement, “Students must be allowed to use their home language in the teaching”, 15% agreed and 41% somewhat agreed, 30% were uncertain by neither agreeing, nor disagreeing. Only eight per cent somewhat disagreed and three per cent totally disagreed, with the rest stating they did not know. The responses to this statement were mirrored to some degree in responses to a statement about the need for fluency in Norwegian to learn mathematics. Thirty-three per cent completely and 38% somewhat disagreed with the statement, “Students must be good enough in Norwegian before they can participate in the school’s mathematics education”. Eighteen per cent neither agreed nor disagreed, 10% somewhat agreed and only one per cent completely agreed. In regard to the role of in-class advocates, it seemed that the majority of preservice teachers considered that students should have possibilities to learn mathematics, without having to be fluent in the language of instruction. Nevertheless, there were also many preservice teachers who indicated uncertainty. Therefore, teacher educators need to discuss issues to do with fluency in the language of instruction, but in a way that respects differences in preservice teachers’ views. Power and privilege operate in teacher education, both in how they position language-diverse students as mathematics learners, but also how they utilise preservice teachers’ views in their teacher education.

The survey also included statements about mathematical modelling, a core element in the Norwegian curriculum (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2019), to identify if preservice teachers’ responses were affected by the context of a specific case. In regard to one statement, “modelling promotes dialogue and cooperation in multilingual classrooms”, 50% of the preservice teachers totally agreed and 41% somewhat agreed. Only nine per cent were undecided about whether they agreed or disagreed and no one totally disagreed. The results suggest that the preservice teachers considered modelling to be a context that supported language-diverse students’ inclusion by promoting dialogue and cooperation. However, when provided with statements about a specific modelling task, the preservice teachers’ responses were less positive. The task was described as being for a grade 5 multilingual class and included a map of a city, showing areas with different amounts of air pollution. The task asked students various questions about where they would want to live and why and how they could present an argument to the municipality to improve the air quality. The task then asked students to create a plan to determine whether higher road tolls could reduce air pollution by limiting the number of cars in the city. In the survey, the preservice teachers responded to the statement, “this project will be too difficult for students who do not speak Norwegian fluently because they will not be able to justify their answers”. Only 3% totally disagreed, 30% somewhat disagreed, 22% did not agree or disagree, and 30% somewhat agreed and 12% totally agreed (3% answered I don’t know). Therefore, the preservice teachers were not as positive about the capabilities of language-diverse students when confronted with implementing a specific task. As the task also included students being asked to present arguments to the local municipality about improving air pollution, preservice teachers may have seen this as making their mathematics teaching political. It could be that, in alignment with McGraw et al.’s (2023) results, preservice teachers who were generally positive about equity issues showed resistance when activism was incorporated.

The differences in the survey results suggest that the preservice teachers held inconsistent language ideologies (Iversen, 2021), in that at times students’ language are considered as a resource but at other times a problem (Planas & Setati-Phakeng, 2014). It may be that rather than just discussing language as a resource generally, teacher educators would be better to use specific mathematical classroom tasks, as a vehicle to support preservice teachers to identify inconsistencies in their language ideologies, that could affect their possibilities to enact in-class advocacy.

Teacher education workshops

In the data from teacher education workshops, there were some examples where in-class advocacy was tied to specific teaching scenarios. These provide insights into the practical challenges of raising with preservice teachers how contexts could contribute to only some students being situated as mathematics learners.

An example came from in a meta-level discussion about a video of a grade 4 multilingual classroom, where the language of instruction was English, and a cultural artefact was the basis for algebra teaching. The example followed group discussions by fifth-year preservice teachers, in a Master level course. The teacher educator (TE), the first author, asked about how oral language was used in the video. In this workshop, there were some international exchange students and so the language used by the preservice teachers, PT5 and PT6, was mostly English, with some Norwegian.

TE::

What happens when you think about the oral language? What were some of the things that the teacher did with the oral language to ensure that she’d actually opened up communication and didn’t shut it down?

PT5::

Hun måtte gjenta det andre elever sa? (She had to repeat what the other students, just said?)

TE::

Yes. Because by focusing in on that mode, she couldn’t be sure that everyone had got it. So, she needed to check on a couple of those girls in particular. And why she chose those, I don’t know. But, to repeat it to check. …

PT6::

But their language didn’t seem to be a problem in this group. So, we discussed the language with, how much learning is there if I was to repeat what she just said? Even if I did not understand it, it doesn’t make me understand anything more. If it was, but had to go and still learn their languages in the school.

TE::

I think that this is an interesting point and there are two things which go with that. It’s you can have very good conversational language, but the academic language can get a bit lost. But there is a case where she’s presuming that there will be some misunderstandings, but maybe there’s not. And that’s where you need to know your learner, and also to know how to present that learner as not being in difficulties. You know, because by pointing them out and saying, “Can you repeat after me?” or “Can you repeat what so and so said?”, you are as a teacher indicating who might not be following. And that has implications for the kind of learning identities that you are making available for those children. … So, these sorts of things are very complicated to balance. Because you do need to check, but you don’t want to sort of situate them always as struggling.

This spontaneous interaction allowed the teacher educator to raise the tension between a teacher feeling they needed to check a student’s comprehension, while not wanting to situate them as being someone unlikely to learn or who was expected to learn more slowly. Students who were always situated as needing extra support, due to a lack of fluency in the language of instruction, were less likely to be seen as competent mathematics learners (Rangnes & Meaney, 2021). This could result in them not being provided with challenging mathematical learning opportunities (I et al., 2020), documented as often being denied within mainstream schooling to certain groups of students, including those with a language-diverse background (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011). This would further reduce these students’ possibilities to be situated as successful mathematics learners. Thus, there is a need for teacher educators to work with preservice teachers to identify teaching practices which could contribute to language-diverse students being situated as not being mathematics learners as part of their role as in-class advocates. In teacher education, it cannot be assumed that spontaneous interactions, such as this, will always arise, meaning that instead they should be explicitly planned.

Compulsory practicum assignments

Other practical considerations about raising the role of being an in-class advocate became clear in first- and second-year, preservice teachers’ compulsory assignments about planning and implementing mathematics tasks on practicum. Although most preservice teachers would have been placed in language-diverse classrooms, given the demographics of Norway, in these assignments, discussions about language-diverse students were only occasionally evident. The assignments which did refer to language-diverse students provide teacher educators, as the readers of these assignments, with insights about how preservice teachers were making sense of being in-class advocates, what they noticed but also what they seemed unaware of.

In the assignments that mentioned language diversity, it was often students’ fluency in the language of instruction that was mentioned, such as when the preservice teachers noted misunderstandings about the tasks or in the group work, which were resolved when students, who shared a home language, acted as interpreters. Iversen (2021) also noted that the preservice teachers in his study referred to students acting as interpreters.

In another example, a group of preservice teachers, at the beginning of their second year, had planned and implemented a modelling task about refugees for a Grade 6 class. Although the preservice teachers noted the students’ enthusiasm for the task (Steffersen & Kasari, 2022), they did not make links between the modelling context to the potential backgrounds of the students. Instead, their reflection stayed at the level of the students’ fluency in Norwegian, with a limited view of how the students’ home languages could support their learning:

In the class, there were several students with a multilingual background, yet there were no language barriers because all the students were strong in Norwegian, and most had lived in Norway all their lives. We had several conversations with the students where we highlighted multilingualism, but it was mainly in the Norwegian subject. In the light of hindsight, we have seen that we could have used more of the advantages that multilingual diversity provides. For example, using the oral terms, such as “adding, subtracting, dividing and doubling”, in several languages can help to strengthen the students’ oral understanding, and engage them in several ways.

Although these preservice teachers showed awareness that languages other than Norwegian could be a resource for learning mathematics, it is clear that there was a need to support them to expand their understanding. Although only in their second year of their five-year teacher education, these preservice teachers were in their final compulsory mathematics education course. There were, therefore, time constraints in deciding how many issues to do with language diversity teacher educators could raise about being an in-class advocate. Perhaps it was sufficient at this point in their education that the preservice teachers were at least aware that they had more opportunities to use students’ multiple languages. Teacher educators often need to make complex choices about the issues that they raise explicitly.

Occasionally, examples in which other languages were used when completing mathematics tasks were positively identified by the preservice teachers. For example, in a compulsory assignment, about designing and implementing a task about perimeter and area for a Grade 5 class with many language-diverse students using Minecraft, a group of first year preservice teachers described the students’ use of English and Norwegian.

The fact that the students were well acquainted with the digital game from before is reflected in their choice of expressions and habits. Some pairs continued to speak Norwegian, while others switched to English and some mixed Norwegian/English. A somewhat whimsical example was three boys who made a sign for their house: Welcome! Her bor: navn, navn og navn (Welcome! Here lives: name, name and name). This group has simply taken the best from each language and mixed Norwegian and the “gaming” language. Two friends in the class chose to have all communication in English, instead of their mother tongue, Norwegian.

Later in their assignment, they wrote, “both girls and boys who barely master Norwegian excelled with grammatically correct English in the Minecraft sessions”. In Norwegian schools, English is an additional language taught from an early age and has a special status because it is a shared language with the teacher (see, for example, Hilt, 2017). English, therefore, is often not considered a problem language, in contrast to the situations when there were non-shared languages (see, for example, Meaney & Rangnes, 2022). Therefore, the use of English in working with the tasks was likely not valued because it allowed students to utilise their linguistic repertoire (I et al., 2020), but because it showed their expertise in another curriculum subject. English was connected to the students’ background as a “gaming language”, rather than one that some students might have as a home language. The preservice teachers may have recognised the students’ funds of knowledge (I et al., 2020) about Minecraft, perhaps because they themselves had knowledge of Minecraft.

The examples from the practicum assignments provide insights into what the preservice teachers notice and possible reasons for noticing. The practical challenge for teacher educators is how to provide opportunities to utilise what the preservice teachers already show awareness of and interest in to raise more challenging issues to do with language-diverse mathematics classrooms in their teacher education.

Our discussion of the three sets of data suggests that the preservice teachers were, on the whole, positive towards the use of multiple languages in the mathematics classrooms, which could provide a good basis for developing their understandings about in-class advocacy. However, there are practical challenges for teacher educators if they are to discuss in-class advocacy beyond general points so that the specific needs of students are highlighted. This involves making clear how the teachers’ power to decide if and when language-diverse students can utilise their full language repertoire can affect the students’ mathematical learning identities and possibilities to learn.

Advocacy beyond the classroom

In the data sets, there were examples of beyond-classroom advocacy about communication with parents and advocating for language-diverse students to gain their rights for support in the mathematics classroom. The examples also provide insights into some of the practical issues of raising these aspects in mathematics teacher education. As was the case for in-class advocacy, these examples provide insights into how privilege, recognition, dignity, and authority affect what was possible both in the school system and in teacher education.

Survey questions

The survey included questions about aspects of advocacy beyond the classroom to do with engaging with parents and with education policy makers. The preservice teachers’ responses provided insights into how they responded to authority, at the policy level and at the school level, as well as how their own cultural understandings about being a mathematics teacher affected their possibilities for communicating with parents.

In alignment with the research of Civil et al. (2005), one of the statements that the preservice teachers were asked to evaluate was “the teachers should visit students’ homes to find out how they can tie mathematics teaching to the students’ realities”. Almost all preservice teachers did not agree, 59% totally disagreeing, 18% mostly disagreeing, with the rest mostly not agreeing nor disagreeing. This could be because there is a strong respect for privacy in Norway, so visiting students’ homes would be considered intrusive and disrespectful to those families. Consequently, teacher educators need to rethink how to raise issues about working with parents so that their knowledge can contribute to students learning mathematics (Stoehr et al., 2022). When teacher educators have limited knowledge about how to raise this aspect of beyond-classroom advocacy with preservice teachers, it may be ignored.

In contrast, the tradition of critically reflecting on their own and others’ actions meant that many preservice teachers showed willingness to engage with government policies that they considered unfair. In the survey, a hypothetical scenario was presented in which the Norwegian government was described as requiring only Norwegian to be spoken in class. The preservice teachers were then asked to evaluate a series of statements about that scenario. The first statement was, “as a mathematics teacher, you follow the rules and do not allow students to speak anything other than Norwegian in your lessons”. Thirty-one per cent disagreed and 46% somewhat disagreed, suggesting they would not follow such a government mandate. These results are in alignment with in-class advocacy in which the preservice teachers indicated they valued the use of home languages in the classroom and suggested that they would defy the government’s rules as a consequence.

However, different language ideologies (Iversen, 2021) appeared in the responses to other statements linked to this scenario. When responding to the statement, “you send a written message to the homes where the parents do not speak Norwegian at home where you describe the change in policy and urge them to speak Norwegian at home”, 42% of the preservice teachers totally disagreeing or mostly disagreeing, 34% totally agreeing or mostly agreeing. Although many preservice teachers still rejected the policy, over a third of them were willing to accept the government decree and advocate for an extension of it into the home environment, even though this was not part of the scenario. Kulbrandstad (2007) had found a similar difference with preservice teachers supporting the use of home languages at school, but privileging the use of Norwegian at home. Therefore, teacher educators need to find ways for preservice teacher to hear from parents about the value of home languages within the family time, including when doing mathematics homework, if they are to challenge the inconsistencies in language ideologies. Although the majority of preservice teachers seemed to recognise parents’ rights to decide who should enter their homes, this needs to be extended so that they recognise that parents should decide which languages to use at home.

The last statement for this scenario was, “you join a Facebook group with other teachers where you protest the new policy and use relevant research to argue why it does not support students in learning mathematics”. Some years earlier, a proposed change to the Norwegian kindergarten act and curriculum was successfully challenged by teachers, through working together, including through Facebook, and advocacy (Fosse et al., 2018), suggesting that this was not an unreasonable way for teachers to act. Twenty-five of the preservice teachers totally disagreed or mostly disagreed with the statement, 27% did not agree, nor disagree, and 37% mostly agreed or totally agreed. Ten per cent were unsure. It may be that having a specific scenario supported the preservice teachers to see opportunities for advocacy beyond the classroom. However, the inconsistencies across preservice teachers and within individual responses highlight how complex it is for teacher educators to raise issues of beyond-classroom advocacy. Part of this is connected to preservice teachers understand how their own privilege and authority affects what they consider to be appropriate for engaging with parents and policy makers.

Teacher education workshops

The data from the workshops contained some examples in which the teacher educator tried to raise preservice teachers’ awareness about beyond-classroom advocacy. We discuss two episodes, one from a workshop with preservice teachers in their first year and the other from a workshop with fifth year preservice teachers. These show the difficulties of trying to raise issues to do with out-of-class advocacy so that there are increased possibilities for students to learn mathematics with dignity and respect.

In a workshop in the first compulsory mathematics course, preservice teachers were introduced to programming with Scratch, through tasks that linked geometry to mathematical argumentation, as examples of what could be done on practicum. At the end of the workshop, the teacher educators (TE) showed a video from the Scratch website (https://scratch.mit.edu/parents) as a way to open up a discussion about diversity and representation. The preservice teachers (PT) were encouraged to problematise who was shown in the video and the messages communicated by these choices in regard to who would see themselves as programmers and why this was important.

TE::

I’ve got one last video that I want to show you. And I want you to think about diversity, because … there’s been concerns about, “Well, who programs?” If we put programming into school, are we just going to make some groups be better than other groups? We have stopped telling students that what matters is being good at mathematics and we say, what matters is being good at programming, but we set up some groups who will naturally have an affiliation with programming and want to do it on the afternoons. So how many of you spend your weekends doing programming?

PT::

Det er ikke mange. (Not so many)

TE: :

Yeah. There will be some children in your class who will do that. So, one of the things is how do you actually introduce it to the ones who are not doing it a lot? I want you to just have a look, this is a very short film. Have a look at it and think about: Who do you think they trying to aim this film at? Who are they trying to persuade to do programming?

(Video: https://scratch.mit.edu/parents)

TE: :

One of the reasons I wanted to show that to you is that predominantly what they're showing is girls, and children of colour and the story that this video tells, is that actually what they think is that those groups will not do coding and they need someone to encourage them to do it. And the problem with that story is that you are already setting up some groups as not being interested. Sometimes these videos overdo things and it actually causes problems rather than actually trying to sort the problems out.

The purpose of the task was to have the preservice teachers problematise how diversity was illustrated by others. This was done in connection to providing “opportunities that society has historically denied to racial and linguistic minorities by dealing directly with the disparities created by mainstream schooling” (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011, p. 251), but by reflecting on how this was being provided, outside the classroom. However, the placement of the activity at the end of a three-hour workshop, in which many of the preservice teachers had learnt to programme for the first time and connected programming to mathematics, meant that much of the potential for critical discussions about diversity and representation was lost. When time is limited in mathematics teacher education, a practical challenge is to find ways to ensure that opportunities to raise beyond-classroom advocacy, do not become an add-on, but have a clear place in the workshop.

In another episode from the same fifth-year Master workshop in the section on in-class advocacy, a preservice teacher (PT) described a classroom experience that led to a spontaneous discussion about being an advocate for students who were not yet fluent in Norwegian.

PT::

But then again, it’s a matter of economics. I’ve had a student who had been one year in Norway, and she had like five hours a week with a teacher and that was to learn the Norwegian language. And so, in every other subject she was on her own. And it does not matter how much we wanted to advocate for her.

TE::

I know, but she has a right. You know? Under the law she has a right.

PT::

Yes, but it doesn’t make sense, very much, over a few hours.

TE: :

No, but this is the issue of where do you stop? Do you just give up on the student? And as a professional you can’t do that. … Yes of course it’s economics and, no, you can’t solve all of the problems. … But it is, when you say the system is not providing the resources, then it’s actually advocating up through the system to change how these things are actually operated. So, it’s that sort of thing of knowing the research to be able to actually advocate - not within your school, because they do have a limited budget - but actually up, through the system into the government. Talk to your representatives and say, “This is the case, this is not good enough. These are constituents in your representative area who are not being fulfilled by the education system, and they have a right to it”. But some of the things you can’t do at a classroom level. And they need an advocate.

In this episode, the need to advocate for language-diverse student’s right to resources so they could participate in mathematics learning was raised. The teacher educator described the possibility to advocate through the system, as part of the professional duties of a teacher, which perhaps the preservice teachers had not previously considered. As with earlier examples, it seemed that the specific context provided an opportunity to move beyond discussing general aspects of advocacy towards considering how students’ dignity was reduced when their entitlement to support was not met and how teachers could engage in beyond-class advocacy by arguing for the implementation of these rights at higher levels of the education system.

Although we recognised theoretically the importance of advocacy beyond the classroom, the data we collected during the LATACME project suggest that it was difficult to raise these aspects with preservice teachers. These difficulties are compounded by there being little research about how to raise beyond-class advocacy that could lead to shifts in teacher education practices which would have long-term outcomes for equity.

Component D: shifting and altering relations of power, privilege, recognition, dignity, authority, knowledge, and mathematics

Our theoretical and practical exploration about raising the role of advocate in mathematics teacher education has been done as an initial contribution to shifting and altering our own, as teacher educators, as well as those of our preservice teachers’ relations of power, privilege, recognition, dignity, authority, knowledge, and mathematics. We hope that our reflections would also contribute to other teacher educators rethinking how understandings of equity can be brought into their practices. The theoretical review from Component A provided insights into in-class and beyond-classroom advocacy. This identified potential issues that could be raised with preservice teachers, some of which overlapped with more common expectations to do with the teacher and learner roles of being a teacher in language-diverse classrooms (Component B). Identifying these issues altered our understanding about the kind of knowledge that preservice teachers might need for taking on the role of advocate. By examining examples from the data collected during the LATACME project, we were able to consider in Component C, if and how issues to do with in-class and beyond-classroom advocacy arose in our teacher education practices and how they might be improved.

This examination highlighted a need to rethink our relations with preservice teachers as well as the kinds of relations that we wanted them to have with language-diverse students and their families as part of their advocate’s role. As teacher educators, we need to utilise our preservice teachers’ views and knowledge about language diversity as a basis for our teacher education. This included recognising that inconsistencies in their language ideologies could provide starting points for discussions about the need to advocate both in-class and beyond-classroom for their future language-diverse students. Although generally positive about the use of other languages in the mathematics classroom, when confronted with specific classroom scenarios the preservice often focused on the students’ fluency with Norwegian. Cultural norms also seemed to reduce their likelihood of engaging with parents outside of the school, restricting possibilities to find out about parents’ expectations and cultural resources.

Our examination showed that we were raising some aspects of the advocate’s role. However, often the issues came up by chance or if planned were left to the end of workshops which suggests that we were not prioritising to the preservice teachers the importance of this role. Consequently, we need to do more to shift our practices so that preservice teachers value including the role of advocate in their work with language-diverse students. As well, more research is needed both about the role of advocate, in and beyond the language-diverse, mathematics classrooms, and how aspects of the role can be appropriately incorporated in teacher education. The use of specific examples from language-diverse classrooms could be valuable for raising aspects of the advocate’s role so that teachers focused on equity as well as mathematical content in their work.

For teacher educators, there also seems to be a need to recognise the cultural norms of the preservice teachers and language-diverse students. Approaches adopted in previous research, such as Stoehr et al. (2022), about visiting parents suggested they could be part of the advocate’s role beyond the classroom. However, this does not seem culturally appropriate in Norway. Thus, further research is needed to expand understandings about how teachers could collaborate with parents in Norway, which could then be used for scenarios in mathematics teacher education.

In this article, we have begun a discussion about how to raise the theoretical and practical aspects connected to being an advocate in language-diverse classroom in mathematics teacher education. Our aim for arguing for the inclusion of the role of advocate was to drive both our own reflections, but also those of other teacher educators so the focus on equity was not just an adaption of what is already provided. Valuing the role of advocate in language-diverse classrooms required us to re-examine not only our theoretical knowledge about what preservice teachers needed to know but also the practices that we used to raise these issues. Exploring the possibilities that being an advocate provided supported us to reflect on our own knowledge and practices which we anticipate will contribute to us continuing to improve them in the future.

To move forward with our reflections but also for those of others, a more systematic review is needed, which recognises differences in how power and privilege operate, between ourselves and preservice teachers as well as between preservice teachers and their future language-diverse students in different places. Responding to calls for equity is a complex process and needs constant, ongoing reflections to meet current needs as well as our preservice teachers’ needs in the future.