"Nobody's Rich and Nobody's Poor … It Sounds Good, but It's Actually Not": Affluent Students Learning Mathematics and Social Justice
ARTICLE
Indigo Esmonde
Journal of the Learning Sciences Volume 23, Number 3, ISSN 1050-8406
Abstract
This article investigates how affluent students made sense of social justice issues that were embedded in mathematics learning activities. I present 2 case studies of such activities at the intermediate and secondary levels in 2 different schools. The analysis draws on video records and classroom artifacts and applies the theoretical framework of figured worlds to consider how students drew on their past experiences and on the structure of the classroom activities to understand the mathematics and the social justice issues. The analysis demonstrates how the 1st activity provided a familiar figured world to support learning about issues of wealth distribution. In the 2nd activity, because of a lack of what are termed "intermediary" figured worlds, students were left to draw on only their own experiences and background knowledge, including stereotypes about poor neighborhoods.
Citation
Esmonde, I. (2014). "Nobody's Rich and Nobody's Poor … It Sounds Good, but It's Actually Not": Affluent Students Learning Mathematics and Social Justice. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 23(3), 348-391. Retrieved August 31, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/167906/.
ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.
Copyright for this record is held by the content creator. For more details see ERIC's copyright policy.
Keywords
- action research
- Advantaged
- case studies
- Class Activities
- Classroom Observation Techniques
- Community Study
- Controversial Issues (Course Content)
- Debt (Financial)
- Educational Practices
- Educational Strategies
- Fiscal Capacity
- global education
- Grade 10
- Grade 7
- Institutional Characteristics
- Intermediate Grades
- Learning Activities
- mathematics education
- Poverty
- PRIOR LEARNING
- Protocol Materials
- Secondary School Students
- Social Justice
- teaching methods