Identifying socially just pedagogies

Name three different factors that extend beyond cultural ethnicity and that may affect or marginalise students' equitable access to mathematics.
Explain how the factors may change students' student engagement.
Briefly, outline how you might address each factor in a socially just pedagogy.
  1. Lack of connections between school mathematics and students’ lives.
  2. Socio economic status
  3. Free market, schools being in competition resulting in symbolic violence.
According to Jorgensen, Gates, and Roper (2014), schools are failing some students as a result of the structure of the educational system by reinforcing social segregation for non dominant groups. This is occurring by prioritising the values of dominant groups and marginalizing other forms of intelligence as a result of the effects of the free market approach to education. Curriculum practices are structured to marginalise particular social and cultural groups, they suffer through symbolic violence by becoming victims of these approaches through which they have been excluded and marginalised because their perspectives do not align with the hegemonic leadership of a dominant group (Jorgensen et al., 2013) and the bias of the teachers (Bartell, 2013 ; Hand, 2012), which reinforces the gap between school mathematics and students’ lives. Sir Ken Robinson expresses a similar view stating that when the system narrowly defines success, it will exclude a huge portion of students who don’t happen to be good at those few valued skills (as cited in Schwartz, 2016). If you get preoccupied by a certain type of achievement then you don’t look for other things people might be good at. Bourdieu (as cited in Jorgensen et al, 2009) reinforces this notion with his definition of habitus. The deeply ingrained habits, skills, dispositions and life experiences of more affluent parents will more often coincide with what is expected at school.
Therefore how relevant is the mathematics curriculum for marginalised groups? Have they been given equitable access to the curriculum by having what Wagner (2014) calls an identity in practice by contributing and participating to a learning curriculum? The teachers should attend, interpret and respond (Wager, 2014) to legitimate learning as it unfolds and is constructed by pupils and not delivered with bias (Hand, 2012). This is how social agency is developed. The non dominant group need to be enabled to participate in mathematics rather than to be spectators (Wagner, 2014). It is only when teachers attend differently to classroom mathematical activities can there be an even playing field for non dominant learners. By reading mathematics to learn about issues that are relevant to their lives, and empowering students with the skills to write mathematics to be able to respond to issues affecting them, will students see themselves capable of making change (Bartell, 2013). Teachers can do this by developing the disposition to notice their students’ participation and pay attention to understand and respond to  diverse perspectives (Wagner, 2014). They can then attend to and interpret behaviours during mathematics class (Thomas et al., 2015) and decide how to deliver the mathematics curriculum so every student can develop a presence in the class by taking up space (Hand, 2012), that is their human right in their mathematics class. No child should be unnoticed in a socially just pedagogy.

References

Bartell, T., (2013). Learning to teach mathematics for social justice: Negotiating social justice
    and mathematical goals. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 44(1), 129-163.

Hand, V. (2012). Seeing culture and power in mathematical learning: Toward a model of
    equitable instruction. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80 (1-2), 233-248.


Jorgensen, R., Gates, P., & Roper, V. (2014). Structural exclusion through school mathematics:
    using Bourdieu to understand mathematics as a social practice. Educational Studies in
    Mathematics, 87, 221-239.   


Schwartz, K. (2016). How to Create a Culture For Valuable Learning. Retrieved from         
able-learning/   
Thomas, J., Eisenhardt, S., Fisher, M., Schack, E., Tassell, J, & Yoder, M.  (2015). Professional      
    Noticing: Developing Responsive Mathematics Teaching. Teaching Children Mathematics,      
    21(5), 294-303.    
Wager,  A. (2014). Noticing children's participation: Insights into teacher positionality toward  
    equitable mathematics pedagogy. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 45(3),

    312-350.      

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