Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice: Reflections on a Community of Practice for Urban High School Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

In this article, the author reports on a study that explored, in part, the developing identities of seven New York City public high school mathematics teachers as teachers of mathematics and agents of change. Meeting regularly as a community of practice, the teachers and author/researcher discussed issues of teaching mathematics for social justice; explored activities and lessons around social justice; and created a unit of study that attempted to meet high school level mathematics standards, while addressing a social justice issue affecting the lives of urban students. The author reports on the mathematics teachers’ growing awareness of and concerns about infusing issues of social justice into their teaching as well as the teachers’ evolving conceptions of what it might mean to teach mathematics in an urban school, of the nature of mathematics itself, and of what their roles as educators might include.