The group has been throwing lots of ideas out there hoping to narrow it down. Social justice math is so big. Bigger than I initially thought.
TOPIC QUESTION:
Can social justice math be an effective teaching method in urban school districts?
SUBTOPICS:
1. What can educators infer from social justice math's implementation in the classroom through data or statistics,?
2. Is social justice math an effective form of teaching?
3. To gauge its effectiveness:
Does it raise motivation and achievement for student?
What data support this claim?
Which school districts employ social justice math in the classroom?
4. Why do some districts choose not to employ social justice math? What is wrong with it?
5. How do teachers feel toward using social justice math in the classroom?
6. Can it help students deal with standardized testing?
QUALITATIVE DATA
1. Interviews:
1. Eliza Leszczynski
2. Brian Miller
3. Rick Mcnamee (tentatively)
Teachers at Harvey Milk HS (East Village), New York City Algebra Project (Brooklyn), Acorn High School for Social Justice (Brooklyn), Bushwick School for Social Justice (Brooklyn)
2. Surveys:
For students through Brian Miller, Rick Mcnamee, Harvey Milk HS (tentatively), New York City Algebra Project
For teachers at Harvey Milk HS (East Village), New York City Algebra Project (Brooklyn), Acorn High School for Social Justice (Brooklyn), Bushwick School for Social Justice (Brooklyn)
Student Survey:
1. What does the term "social justice" mean to you? What does the term "social justice math” mean?
2. Do you feel that math should incorporate social,political and economic issues into its instruction, such as with a social justice math curriculum? Why/why not?
3. Is it important for students to have an understanding of social, political and economic issues locally and around the world?
4. Should developing a "social consciousness" be an important part of your educational experiences?
4. Can math empower students to analyze and potentially change the world?
5. Do you think higher-level thinking about the larger mathematical ideas is important? Why/why not?
6. Could incorporating social justice math motivate more students to learn math?
7. Do you think math would be more engaging if it was "real world" rather than "theory"?
8. If you were given the opportunity, would you choose to participate in actual community problem-solving projects?
Teacher Survey:
1. What do you know about social justice math?
1. Do you currently use social justice math in your classes?
2. How would you summarize its basic purpose?
3. What do you feel are the positive outcomes of using social justice math in a classroom?
4. What do you feel are the negative aspects to using social justice math in a classroom?
5. Can you describe your personal experiences using social justice math in the classroom?
6. Can you give examples of lessons you have brought to the classroom incorporating social justice math?
7. Rate the following on a scale of 1 (least likely) to 5 (most likely):
- Social justice math can help me differentiate the curriculum more easily.
- Social justice math can help me create interdisciplinary and thematic units.
- Social justice math can help me learn about my students' families and their communities.
- Social justice math can help me assess learning within a meaningful context.
3. Qualitative Research [citations in red have not been read, but seem to fit criteria]
· Christiansen. (2007). Some tensions in mathematics education for democracy.
o A qualitative study of four mathematics classrooms and some of the tensions and benefits of teaching social justice math.
· Gutstein, Lipman, Hernandez, & de los Reyes. (1997). Culturally relevant mathematics teaching in a Mexican American context.
o A qualitative study of Mexican American elementary/middle school
· Gutstein. (2003). Teaching and Learning Mathematics for Social Justice in an Urban, Latino School.
o A qualitative study of 7th and 8th grade Latino/a students in a midwestern public school who learned mathematics using the curricular program Mathematics in Context (MiC) as well as special projects on social justice math
· Gutstein. (2006). The real World as We Have Seen It: Latino/a Parents' Voices on Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice
o A qualitative study of Latino/a parents who supported social justice math in their children's 7th grade classroom in the Chicago public schools
· Skovsmose. (1994). Towards a Critical Mathematics Education.
o This article uses a class project that uses social justice math to explain math literacy (or mathemacy) and the importance of a critical mathematics education. It implements several units that could be used in a social justice math setting.
· Telese. (1999, May). Mexican American high school students' perceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching.
o A survey of Mexican American high school students and their perceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching in traditional and reform classrooms.
· Treisman. (1992). Studying Students Studying Calculus: A Look at the Lives of Minority Mathematics Students in College.
o A lecture given as one of the Mary P. Dolciani lectures at Hunter College. Embeded within is a qualitative study of college freshman, in particular minorities (African americans and Asians), their motivation towards studying and understanding mathematics (in particular calculus), and how the college system failed them
o A chart of possible topics for social justice math classroom use; how to implement social justice math into the classroom; advantages and disadvantages to using social justice math in the classroom
| Math Topic | Social Justice Issues | Some Useful Websites |
| Adding | Basic Family Budgets Determining how much money a family needs to survive, live comfortably, etc. Mayan Mathematics Learn how to add, subtract, multiply in a base 20 system | http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/datazone_fambud_budget http://www.dpsk12.org/programs/almaproject/pdf/MayanMathematics.pdf |
| Averages | Union Salaries Union officials and Management often have different ways to come up with the “average salary” of a worker. Use real data to understand how the mean, median, or mode could each be used here, and the difference between the average each one gave. | http://www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm#data |
| Combinations | The Lottery Study how the Lottery works, why it’s nearly impossible to win, and the economic damage it causes | |
| Exponents | Compound Interest Population Growth Growth/decline of food and water resources, cities | World Population Growth: |
| Fractions | War Budgets Comparing budgets for defense department to budgets for other social services to the total budget. Comparing how money spent on military operations could be used to support other important causes (ex: if a bomb costs $10 million and a it costs $10,000 to provide health care for an entire family for a year, how many families could get health care for the cost of this bomb). | http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm |
| Geometry | Liquor Stores Look at how many liquor stores are within a 1-mile radius or within 5 blocks of your school. This can be compared with schools in other neighborhoods Environmental Racism Determine the density of toxic waste facilities, factories, dumps, etc, in the neighborhood Gentrification Change in the density of people in a neighborhood (by race/income) Ethnomathematics African Fractals Tesselations Origami | http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/afractal/afractal.htm |
| Graphing | Line Graphs Incarceration rates for different populations, races Pie Graphs Budgets – Determining what percent of your taxes went to each branch of the government Scatterplot Graphs Correlation between % any two of the following factors: percent of population that is people of color, rates of poverty, crime, health issues (rates of asthma, AIDS, diabetes, obesity, etc), pollution, etc. | Total: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/corr2tab.htm By Race: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpus9701.pdf http://www.nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/interactivetaxchart/taxchart.html |
| Inequalities | Small Business By creating a number of algebraic inequalities that describe limits a business is working with (ie. time, supplies), you can graph multiple inequalities (or by using systems) to determine the number of products (x,y) to make that would maximize the profit. | |
| Logarithms | Growth Rates People, prisoners, AIDS cases, health factors, etc. | Global Health: http://globalatlas.who.int/ Also: See other resources listed |
| Percents | Interest & Compound Interest Making money through a Savings Account Increasing debt on a Credit Card Payday and Tax Refund Loans Predatory Lending Mortgage Payments APR – how it works, comparing different APR’s Growth Rate Growth in rates of homelessness, poverty, people in jail, etc. Proportions, ex: Percent of each race in total population vs. incarcerated (or in the military, killed in the war, dropping out of high school, college graduates, etc) | http://www.demos.org/page37.cfm http://www.nedap.org/resources/documents/FINALRALSREPORT.pdf http://nedap.org/programs/fairlending.html Poverty: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/histpovtb.html Health: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus05.pdf Housing: |
| Probability | Racial Profiling Explore the probability that a traffic stop should be (and is) of a person of color | http://www.racialprofilinganalysis.neu.edu/ |
| Rates | Prison growth Rates of different races and genders becoming incarcerated Compared to growth of high school graduates Compared to growth of funding for higher education Population growth In different countries (also good for looking at a population density) Compared to resources (food, oil, water, etc) available Resource Density Density of banks compared to check-cashers and pawn shops in rich vs. poor communities | http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/p04.htm http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/dropout91_97/all_tables.asp http://coe.ilstu.edu/grapevine/Welcome.htm |
| Regression | See “Scatterplot Graphing” above | |
| Slope | Rates of Increase/Decrease of: People in prison Poverty Population | See resources listed above |
| Statistics | Community Surveys Teach students how to write surveys, and then survey your school or local community about any social issue. Statistical analysis can be used to understand the results: averages, ranges, frequency tables, graphing, correlation, percents, hypothesis testing, variance, standard deviation, etc. Racial Profiling Try different sampling experiments to understand the why having a disproportionate number of drivers of color stopped by police is unfair | See above links for Statistical data to analyze http://www.racialprofilinganalysis.neu.edu/ |
| Systems | Resource Availability Determining at what point the resources available and societies needs will be the same (such as need for housing and new housing available | |
Integrating social justice with mathematics and scinece: an analysis of student teacher lessons
Barbara Garii, Audrey C. Rule
· A qualitative analysis of how student teachers incorporate social justice into math and science classes
QUANTITATIVE DATA: [citations in red have not been read, but seem to fit criteria]
· Winter (2007) Infusing Mathematics with Culture: Teaching Technical Subjects for Social Justice
o A quantitative study that provides statistical data demonstrating that social and cultural learning can be infused into technical courses without negatively affecting content area learning
· West and Davis (2005). Research Related to the Algebra Project’s Intervention to Improve Student Learning in Mathematics.
o A quantitative study of the Algebra Project as provided by Lesley College for the State of Virginia's Department of Education.
o It demonstrates that the Algebra Project served to bolster test scores for traditionally under-achieving students.
