CAREER: Advancing Equity in Middle School Mathematics by Engaging Students and Families of Color in Participatory Design Research

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Schools and districts around the country seek to address racial inequities, yet vast disparities in learning opportunities, outcomes, and experiences persist. Furthermore, those who bear the heaviest burdens of racial injustice—namely, students of color and their families—are rarely meaningfully included in conceptualizing and implementing equity-oriented initiatives. Policymakers and administrators have often treated curricular and pedagogical change as something that should be done to or for these students and families, not with or by them. The proposed project seeks to investigate the possibilities and challenges of using a participatory approach to research and design, centering Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Hmong students and their families in imagining and creating change. This approach has the potential to disrupt inequitable practices of mathematics education as well as undemocratic processes for making decisions about mathematics education. Further, it will be a catalyst for developing racially just practices and processes in mathematics education. This CAREER award is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12), which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This project is also supported by the Racial Equity in STEM Education program (EHR Racial Equity), which supports projects that advance racial equity in STEM education and workforce development through research and practice. This project will generate new knowledge about the possibilities and limitations of participatory design research (PDR) as a method for advancing equity in mathematics education through PDR cycles at three middle schools over the five years of the project. These cycles include families of color participating in mathematical activity, sharing their experiences, collecting data germane to their experiences, and making recommendations to create more equitable practices and policies in mathematics education. Thus, PDR cycles provide a more democratic and egalitarian means of understanding and addressing social problems than traditional research methods. Educational activities culminating from this research include the development of graduate-level curriculum related to PDR. This project will also contribute groundbreaking evidence of how families, educators, and school leaders can use PDR to shift power dynamics and make systemic change in mathematics education by centering the voices and knowledge of students of color and their families. It will add to the small body of literature regarding how students of color and their families understand racial equity and justice in mathematics education. Their perspectives are essential to inform equity- and justice-oriented research and practice. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.