Math as a Civil Right: Social and Cultural Perspectives on Teaching and Teacher Education.

ABSTRACT This article argues for a social and cultural perspective on mathematics education that sees mathematical as a civil right and cites The Algebra Project as an example of culturally-responsive instruction. Recommendations are made for reforming teacher education, by including a course for all prospective middle and high school teachers, regardless of subject they teach, so they all become skilled at numeracy. Twentieth century triumphs in math achievement have been more taxing for African-American, Latino, and Native American students than for white and Asian-American students, although gender, social class, and other dynamics certainly affect equity in math literacy as well. When schools address achievement gaps between cultures, genders, and social classes, they often do so either by explaining away problem or by simply teaching more mathematics using same old strategies. The effect of these practices is that only a narrow slice of U.S. population is at cutting edge of innovations and therefore will have opportunity to gain more control over their lives. What is needed is a new perspective that sees math as a civil right. WHY STUDENTS WON'T COUNT: THE PROBLEM RIGHT NOW There is plenty of reason to view math through a civil rights or critical perspective. Popkewitz (2004) pointed out, that current U.S. public school math curriculum views successful student as a problem-solver able to be an autonomous citizen adapting to challenges that will be faced over a lifetime, but this view clashes with another predominant tradition, that discipline of math has a fixed and stable logical structure of knowledge (p.18). In this tradition, curriculum exists to reveal this logical structure to child. Popkewitz (2004) asserts that what is missing from different vantage point of standards-based reforms is flexibility of using mathematics as a language with which to explore new worlds and question conventionality. The modern math standards idolize math experts and impose a rigid structure on math field. Teachers become microphones for these standards. They remain center of attention in classroom --- whether they are lecturing or structuring interactive activities. The empowerment of students is sacrificed to following experts and standards. Any deficits become located in students rather than in methods used to present math concepts to students. There is no talk of a right to learn math or exploratory nature of numbers. In Canada, a historical analysis described how standardized tests have been a means of governing citizenry (Graham & Neu, 2004). This study concluded that, in recent decades, debate about such numericizing tools tended to center on correctness of numerical value and on methods of its derivation rather than on appropriateness of translating people into numbers at all.(p. 302). School processes of measuring reduce children from complete individuals to only role of student, even though teachers know that the child at school desk is much more than a learner (p. 310). Numbers applied without attention to underlying values guiding them erase complexity of what is measured. In general, math teaching remains primarily didactic lecturing with few training opportunities for teachers to view math through lenses of various students' cultures (Grant, Peterson, & Shojgreen-Downer 1996; Malloy, 2003; Sleeter, 1997). There is no emphasis, for example, on existing strengths within African-American communities that converge with mathematics and can be used to build upon hard-won 20th century achievements within those communities. Math is really no worse than other subjects in its slow response to cultural diversity of adolescents' needs and hopes. To generate a mathematical experience which is more likely to be socially just, Burton (1996) asserts, we have to relocate authority from discipline to learner who is member of a family and community (p. …

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