LATINA/O STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS, LEARNING MATHEMATICS, AND THEIR SENSE OF AGENCY

Rodrigo Gutiérrez, Tal Sutton,Erin Turner, Maura VarleyUniversity of Arizona

CEMELA is a Center for Learning and Teaching supported by the National Science Foundation, grant number ESI-0424983.

AIM OF THE STUDYTo explore the nature of Latino/a

students’ beliefs related to mathematics, mathematical identity, and sense of agency, through analysis of interview data with math club participants.• Part of a larger study focusing more

broadly on Latino/a students’ experiences and participation in after-school mathematics clubs.

• Cross-site analysis with UIC planned for this Spring- AERA symposium.

THEORETICAL TOOLS Learning as Participation (Boaler & Greeno; Nasir)

Positioning and being positioned, taking on roles Identity and Agency (Holland; Greeno & Gresalfi;

Pruyn; Sfard)Mathematical Identities; Identity as Learners;

Identity as Agents of Change Mathematical Struggle (Middleton & Spanias; Meyer

et al.)Willingness to persist with challenging tasks, linked

to mathematical identity

RELEVANT RESEARCH QUESTIONSRESOURCES: What linguistic, cultural, and social resources do students

use as they engage in learning mathematics?STRUGGLE: What factors support students’ willingness to struggle? To

what extent does students’ willingness to struggle with challenging tasks change over time?

IDENTITY/ AGENCY:

What is the nature of students’ mathematical identity, their agency as learners, and their sense of socio-political agency?

BELIEFS: What is the nature of students’ beliefs about the discipline, about school math, and its relevance to their lives and communities? How do these beliefs shift over time?

CONCERNS about SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY:

What issues in the school and/or local community are Latino/a youth concerned about? What is the nature of their concern?

RESEARCH CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS

Elementary and middle school after-school Math Club (8 elementary and 25 middle school participants)non-traditional, problem-solvingcommunity-basedcritical mathematics

Interview Participants: 5th-8th grade; 11 female, 9 male

Students attended majority-Latino/a schools in Arizona

SOURCES OF DATA• 2-3 individual interviews conducted with each

participant (Early Fall and Late Spring)• Total Interviews: 42 (20 participants)• Focus of Interviews: – Language Use– Beliefs about:

• Discipline of math • Self as math learner • Math learning

– Beliefs about self as agent of change

SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONSIDENTITY/AGENCY:What is the nature of students’ mathematical identity, their mathematical learning, sense of socio-political agency?

- How would you describe yourself as a math student? Are you good at math? How do you know?

- What makes someone really good at math?

- Given an issue that student wants to change, could you do something about this, could you impact change?

BELIEFS:What is the nature of students’ beliefs about the discipline, about school math, and its relevance to their lives and communities? How do these beliefs shift over time?

- When you hear the word math what comes to mind? How would you explain to a younger child what math is?

- Do you think math is important? What is math important for?

- What is something you want to change – could math help you in any way?

DATA ANALYSIS Coding:

Group process of review of transcripts, generating codes based on theoretical constructs and the data, defining and refining codes.

Hyperresearch used for organization, coding and analysis

Reliability CodingSubset of interview transcripts coded by two

researchers, discrepancies documented and resolved, and code list refined.

Analysis within and across two sets of data (Elementary and Middle School)

INITIAL FINDINGS: WHAT IS MATH? Overwhelmingly numbers and operations

Ex: “I think of numbers, like 2 times 20 or 2 times 100…. When I think of math I just see a whole bunch of numbers and problems go around me and I get dizzy and then I fall because it’s so much work.”

Maria, 5th grade Variety of real world applications (many consumer-

related)Ex: “I think of math as a way that helps your life, like in

the store if you want to buy something and if you want to buy two of them then you got to know your math.”

Alegria, 5th grade

INITIAL FINDINGS: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “GOOD AT MATH”

• Students see being good at math as measured by external evaluation (grades and test scores). Often, these tests measure one’s calculation speed and/or memorization skills.

• “Good math students” engage in behaviors such as doing homework, practicing, paying attention, showing up on time for class.

• VERY isolated mention of understanding or the ability to solve challenging problems as indicators of being “good at math.”

INITIAL FINDINGS: SELF AS MATH LEARNER Disconnect between how students see themselves as

mathematical learners and how they frame being “good at math.” Students see themselves as problem solvers, and describe their problem-solving strategies, while being good at math is primarily attributed to external measures and rote learning-related behaviors. Ex: Problem solver vs. test scores

Students see themselves as having the capacity to be good at math (i.e., get a better grade). Improving in math is linked to effort/practice and “getting it”. Success in math is not static.

INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCY

• Dance between Structure and Agency (Pickering)Students aware that power structures can impede their

individual/collective agency (sometimes this goes as far as seeing change as impossible), and structures can be leveraged to support their agency (i.e., gaining the support of people in power).

Power as embodied/operationalized in different ways (people in power, time, money, resources, power of adults over children, resistance to change, etc.).

Collective action (particularly collective action on the part of youth) is critical to effecting change (especially given the constraints to agency).

INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCY Example:

“We’re gonna show [the survey results] to the parents and then show it to the principals and teachers so they can help us make change to the school safety.”

Juliana, 7th grade

INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCYFeel they can make change if they “have extra

people” or “if the whole community comes together and talks about it.” Maggie and Veronica, 5th graders

“We’re little kids and we want the school to not close and when we showed our video I think the board members really got an idea of how we felt.” Veronica, 5th grade

IMPLICATIONS

Have explicit conversations with students about what it means to be good at math, value multiple kinds of mathematical “smartness”* in order to expand notions of what it means to be good at math beyond grades and test scores.

*Dr. Marcy Wood’s term

o Classroom structures should support students’ agentive beliefs about doing math (involves problem-solving and effort).

IMPLICATIONS

A aBroadened notion of mathematics as critical and community-based could lead to stronger sense of critical mathematical agency.

Students’ experiences with critical mathematics has the potential to broaden their notion of what it means to do math and their sense of agency.