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Reinscribing urban: teaching high school mathematics in low income, urban communities of color

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Abstract

This article reports findings from a research and professional development project at two high schools located in low-income, urban communities of color. The project collaborates with teachers on improving their instructional practices, using a framework of culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy, which is described in detail here. We present results from a qualitative and quantitative analysis of mathematics instruction in 68 classroom observations of seven teachers. In particular, we use culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy as a lens through which to analyze instruction and the associated opportunities to learn mathematics provided to students.

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Notes

  1. In this article, we intend the meaning of “urban” to specifically indicate “of or relating to a city”.

  2. One of these eight teachers was a special education teacher who co-teaches mainstream mathematics courses with mathematics teachers.

  3. For instance, nearly 91% of students enrolled at Harwood were middle school students in this district, and only 30% of those scored at or above proficiency level on their 8th-grade state mathematics examination.

  4. Names of schools and teachers are pseudonyms.

  5. Three of the four mathematics teachers at Carver and four of the five mathematics teachers at Harwood were full participants in the project in 2009–2010.

  6. Two observations of two of the teachers were dropped from the data set because of highly atypical circumstances.

  7. An independent-samples t test for differences between the two researchers in mean ratings of each of the rating scales over the 13 jointly observed lessons was conducted, and differences were not statistically significant (α = 0.01).

  8. All six pairings of the four ratings categories are correlated at the 1% level, with Pearson correlation coefficients of at least 0.723.

  9. The two teachers with the highest instructional environment ratings had mean ratings that are significantly higher, using an independent-samples t test, than the two teachers with the lowest ratings (p < 0.01).

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Acknowledgments

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 0742614. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors thank Vicki Hand for her thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Laurie H. Rubel

  2. Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Haiwen Chu

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  1. Laurie H. Rubel
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  2. Haiwen Chu
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Correspondence to Laurie H. Rubel.

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Rubel, L.H., Chu, H. Reinscribing urban: teaching high school mathematics in low income, urban communities of color. J Math Teacher Educ 15, 39–52 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-011-9200-1

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