| This study was grounded in a reanalysis of learning mathematics with understanding to take into account the cultural and socio-political contexts in which children live and learn. The goals of the study were twofold. First, to critically examine (a) teaching for understanding, (b) the relationship between students' out-of-school mathematical knowledge and the mathematics they learn in school, and (c) the mathematical knowledge students need to question inequities in their world. Second, to identify how teachers addressed these themes as they considered their students' learning and their mathematics pedagogy through an equity lens.;Seventeen elementary teachers participated in a semester-long professional development seminar in which they read, reflected, discussed, and practiced the three themes described above. The analysis included coded data from seminar discussions, teacher to teacher interviews, teachers' autobiographies, teachers' letters, teachers' written stories, pre- and post-seminar interviews, and field notes from classroom observations. The analysis also included narrative case studies of three teachers.;The study led to a definition of equitable mathematic pedagogy , which entails teaching for understanding that incorporates consideration of culture and social justice. Within this frame, four forms of incorporating cultural and out-of-school mathematics with school mathematics emerged: (a) identifying the embedded mathematical practices prominent in cultural or out-of-school contexts, (b) addressing cultural or out-of-school activities using school mathematics, (c) creating teacher initiated situated settings, and (d) using cultural or out-of-school contexts for problems. The findings also revealed a refined view of teaching social justice by differentiating among teaching about, with, and for social justice. Analysis of the case studies revealed instantiations of the ways in which teachers' histories and context had an impact on how they engaged with the ideas of equitable mathematics pedagogy. These cases offered examples of different trajectories that teachers in the study followed and can be used as a guide for teachers and teacher educators as they learn about equitable mathematics pedagogy. |
