TConcerns-Anhalt-Rodriguez-April08 Journal of Urban Mathematics Education December 2013, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 42–61 ©JUME. http://education.gsu.edu/JUME CYNTHIA OROPESA ANHALT is an assistant specialist in mathematics education and is direc- tor of the Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation Program in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science at The University of Arizona, 617 N. Santa Rita Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721; email: canhalt@math.arizona.edu. Her research interests include teacher professional de- velopment in pedagogical strategies for problem solving and mathematical modeling, in particular, with a focused interest in English learning students. MARÍA ELENA RODRÍGUEZ PÉREZ is a teacher-researcher in the Behavioral Research Center at the University of Guadalajara, 180 Francisco de Quevedo St., Guadalajara, Mexico 44130; email: rpm08428@cucba.udg.mx. Her research interests include learning, in particular, the role of verbal mediation in learning, teacher formation for scientific education and the acquisition of sci- entific abilities. K–8 Teachers’ Concerns about Teaching Latino/a Students1 Cynthia Oropesa Anhalt The University of Arizona María Elena Rodríguez Pérez Universidad de Guadalajara In this article, the authors examine elementary and middle school mathematics teachers’ concerns about teaching Latino/a student populations across three re- gions in the United States: southern Arizona, northern New Mexico, and central California. Surveys were administered to 68 teachers who participated in profes- sional development activities on language and culture diversity. Survey questions consisted of items from three domains: (a) concerns about social issues central to teaching Latino/a students, such as discrimination, multiculturalism, and stereo- types; (b) concerns about the task of teaching Latino/a students focusing on meth- ods, strategies, materials, and new ideas for teaching; and (c) concerns about La- tino/a students’ learning, which dealt with factors that impact student perfor- mance in school, such as home environment, family culture, and expectations. In general, the authors found that the surveyed teachers were highly concerned with issues about teaching Latino/a students and their learning and were less con- cerned about social issues in teaching Latino/a students. KEYWORDS: English learning students, Latinos/as, mathematics education, urban education he ethnic and linguistic diversity of U.S. schools has grown significantly in the past 30 years (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The increase in diversity exists due to many factors including students’ place of birth; length of residence in the 1 This article was supported through the Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as (CEMELA). CEMELA is a Center for Learning and Teaching supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), grant number ESI-042983. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recom- mendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. T http://education.gsu.edu/JUME mailto:canhalt@math.arizona.edu https://horde3.math.arizona.edu/horde3/imp/message.php?index=34645 Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 43 United States; linguistic backgrounds (varying levels of proficiencies in English and non-English languages); prior school experience; socioeconomic status; child nurturing practices; family configurations; and communication patterns, including code switching and varying levels of bilingualism (García & González, 1995). In 2004-05, the Latino/a student enrollment in the U.S. K–12 education system was approximately 19% and approximately 21% in 2009 (National Center for Educa- tion Statistics, NCES, 2013a). In some states, the Latino/a 2 student enrollment was above the national average; for example, in Arizona, California, and New Mexico, it was 38%, 47%, and 53%, respectively. Current reports indicate that White students score higher than their Latino/a peers on standardized tests at a national level; the “achievement gap” between Hispanic and White students in 2009 at grades 4 and 8 in mathematics was be- tween 21 and 26 points on the NAEP scale (NCES, 2013b). This so-called achievement gap—the difference in performance between “racial” groups of stu- dents—has long been linked to a difference in family socioeconomic status (Ortiz-Franco, 1999). Recent findings (see NCES, 2013b) show that the differ- ence in academic achievement between ethnic groups is more than an issue of poverty versus wealth. Gándara (2005) reported that high achieving Latino/a stu- dents are not likely to come from economically and educationally advantaged backgrounds. These recent findings call for a reexamination of the nature of the educational vulnerability of linguistically and culturally diverse students. Effective Teaching for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students Supporting Latino/a Students In the past decade or so there has been a growing body of research that has explicitly explored how to best support Latino/a students’ mathematical experi- ences in a variety of in-school and out-of-school contexts (see, e.g., the edited volume Latinos/as and Mathematics Education: Research on Learning and Teaching in Classrooms and Communities, edited by Téllez, Moschkovich, and Civil, 2011). Much of this research documents how linguistic and cultural diversi- ty can be a valuable resource for mathematics teaching and learning—for students and teachers alike. For instance, Zahner and Moschkovich (2011) found that mul- tilingual students who use two (or more) languages while doing mathematics pos- sess a set of linguistic resources for managing the social and cognitive demand of group mathematics discussions. They concluded that these students’ participation 2 We use the term Latinos/as to refer to the student population in the United States whose origins are of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish cultures re- gardless of “race.” Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 44 in mathematics discourse in classrooms is critical to their understanding of math- ematical ideas, and that mathematics learning is mediated by participation in a community where discussions of mathematics take place. This growing body of research in general supports the fact that when schools view linguistic and cultural diversity as a resource rather than a deficiency and hold high expectations for La- tino/a students, they more times than not experience consistent academic growth in achievement (see, e.g., Jesse, Davis & Pokorny, 2004). Turner, Varley Gutiérrez, and Díez Palomar (2011) explored out-of-school mathematics learning experiences. Turner and colleagues successfully worked with Latino/a elementary students in problems grounded in community settings that gave the students new perspectives on seeing mathematics in their everyday world outside of school mathematics. They framed their work in community mathematization, where students collaboratively use mathematics to make sense of their environment of familiar contexts in an afterschool setting. The contexts for the mathematics problems included single and multi-step computation, geome- try, area, and volume measurements in rich modeling problems. Turner and col- leagues found that students were able to capitalize on their background knowledge to solve problems and explain solutions through their understanding and ownership of the mathematics. Teacher Preparation and Professional Development Eliciting and making sense of students’ cultural, home, and community- based knowledge, and its relevance to mathematics instruction, is a complex prac- tice that takes special attention by teachers. This process should begin in teacher preparation and continue to develop as teachers enter the field (Civil, 2007). Re- cently, Turner, Drake, McDuffie, Aguirre, Bartell, & Foote (2012) proposed a vi- sion of effective mathematics teaching for diverse learners where pre-service teachers developed lessons that reflected meaningful connections to diverse stu- dents’ cultural, home, and community-based knowledge that supported mathemat- ics learning. The pre-service teachers created lessons for elementary students in- spired by what they learned about the mathematical practices and skills used in a familiar hub for the local Latino/a community. Within the lessons, they created challenging problem-solving tasks situated in a familial context, which had cul- tural relevance for the students. In addition to the socio-cultural perspectives for teacher preparation, math- ematics education involves helping teachers consider strategies that incorporate multiple modalities and representations of mathematical ideas for the classroom setting. Anhalt and Ondrus (2011) worked with middle school mathematics teach- ers in a professional development course in addressing algebraic concepts using multiple representations: algebra blocks for the concrete representations, relevant contextual representations, pictorial representations, linguistic representations, Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 45 and abstract mathematical symbolism. One goal of the course was for the teachers to see mathematical concepts through concrete representations to expand their un- derstanding of abstract decontextualized mathematics symbolism. They found that the teachers were able to make connections between the concrete, abstract sym- bolism, linguistic, and contextual representations of mathematical situations. In building this fluency between representations of mathematical ideas, the teachers saw the value of incorporating multiple representations in their teaching for all students, and especially crucial for their Latino/a and English learning (EL) stu- dents. These findings echo those of another similar study where the use of multi- ple representations designed for understanding a target language was found to be an effective instructional practice (Téllez & Waxman, 2006). Because the use of language plays a crucial role in understanding mathematics, especially for Lati- no/a EL students, explicit and deliberate linguistic and intellectual support during cognitively demanding tasks is vital. Effective teachers and schools recognize that any attempt to address the needs of Latino/a students in a deficit or “subtractive” mode is counter-productive (García & González, 1995; Valenzuela, 1999). Therefore, we argue that the rele- vance of teachers’ everyday positive personal interactions with Latino/a students is critical in helping students succeed academically. Valenzuela (1999) suggests that teachers’ use of an “additive” approach when teaching linguistically and cul- turally diverse students influences students’ academic success. An additive ap- proach would include, among others: a school climate free of prejudices, school methods and materials that appeal to all students regardless of their cultural back- ground, and high expectations for students from teachers and parents. These top- ics should be of high interest to schools with a significant number of Latino/a stu- dents enrolled. In the study presented here, teachers’ concerns while teaching La- tino/a students were assessed in order to learn the importance given to issues re- garding school climate, methods, materials, and expectations for students. The target participants of this study were K–8 teachers enrolled in professional devel- opment programs across three U.S. geographical regions. Researching Teachers’ Concerns Concerns are defined as an emotional undertone that signals insecurity and resistance to new situations and changes (Van den Berg & Vandenberghe, 1995). Concerns also can be interpreted as feelings, thoughts, or reactions to certain things (Mok, 2005). Research on teachers’ concerns draws heavily on the work of Fuller (1969). Fuller and Bown (1975) suggest that pre-service teachers start their careers with idealized ideas about students and teaching. This idealization chang- es with the first teaching experience and a central question becomes important: Will I be able to manage the class? Fuller and Bown name this kind of concern as Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 46 a “survival concern” or “self-concern.” As teachers become more experienced, they become concerned about methods and materials and start looking for new ideas for their teaching. Still, these are concerns about their own performance as a teacher and not concerns about students and their learning. They name these as “concerns about the task” or “teaching concerns.” Finally, Fuller and Bown re- ferred to “concern about the pupils,” “impact concerns,” or “learning concerns” when teachers have an eye for students’ social and emotional needs and they be- come more focused on their relationships with individual students. Initially, Fuller argued that concerns would change according to teachers’ development. That is, self-concerns would appear mainly at the beginning stage of teacher development, in which teachers have anxiety about their ability to survive in the classroom. At a second stage of teacher development, the task of teaching is the largest concern. Teachers are concerned about the performance of their teaching tasks, which in- clude resources, strategies, and time management. At the third stage, the impact concerns relate to the teachers’ apprehensions about social and learning needs of pupils. Studies have found that concerns do not necessarily develop in a sequential manner in the stages of teacher development (see, e.g., Adams, 1982; Ghaith & Shaaba, 1999). Any kind of concern may increase or decrease suddenly (Swennen, Jörg & Korthagen, 2004), overlap (Pigge & Marso, 1987) or play a central role from the very beginning of the professional development without changes (Smith & Sanche, 1993). Mok (2002) explained that the differences in findings across studies suggest that the concerns in Fuller’s (1969) model are framed in very broad terms and hence it is not surprising that task concerns and impact concerns occur in similar stages. These findings may imply that task and impact concerns, which are highly associated with the job of teaching, naturally are concerns in most stages of teachers’ careers. Therefore, Charalambous, Philippou and Kyria- kides (2004) argued that Fuller’s types of concerns could be considered in terms of levels, not stages. Hence, those concerns related to self-survival (i.e., aware- ness, information-seeking, and personal relationships) are categorized as first- level concerns, those concerns related to teaching (e.g., management, methods, curriculum, and resources) are categorized as second-level concerns, and finally, those concerns related to student impact (e.g., consequences of effective teaching, collaboration with other teachers, making suggestions for improving student learning) are categorized as third-level concerns. An interesting finding from studies on teacher concerns is that self-concerns are normally found to decrease with increase in years of experience (Adams, 1982; Pigge & Marso, 1997; Veenman, 1984). Additionally, Ghaith and Shaaban (1999) found that teaching concerns, which include performance, curriculum, re- sources, and strategies, are very low in teachers with more than fifteen years of experience. This evidence reveals the complex patterns of personal development, Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 47 professional identity, and the emotional dimensions of the teaching profession (Poulou, 2007). Overall, the issue of what concerns teachers is an important one. Although studies have been done on general teaching concerns, few studies have attempted to document teachers’ concerns while teaching linguistically and cul- turally diverse students. The study reported here addresses this gap. Methodology Participants and Contexts Sixty-eight K–8 mathematics teachers of Latino/a students from three ge- ographical contexts participated in this study. Approximately two-thirds of the participants taught at the elementary level and one-third taught at the middle school level. The regions represented an urban area in Arizona, a rural and urban area of California, and rural and urban areas of New Mexico near large local uni- versities. The teachers from the three regions participated in a variety of profes- sional development activities during their partnership with their local universities (The University of Arizona, The University of New Mexico, and University of California, Santa Cruz). The teachers from New Mexico participated in summer institutes with a focus on teaching strategies for teaching mathematics to EL stu- dents. Teachers from California participated in professional development activi- ties that incorporated mathematics content and pedagogy specific to the context of Latino/a students. And teachers from Arizona engaged in additional coursework and also participated in a variety of professional development activities including a teacher study group (9 teachers), professional development courses on various mathematics topics with an emphasis on teaching EL students (22 teachers), and lesson study (4 teachers). While the professional development activities at each site differed, the premise under which the CEMELA professional development activities functioned was the same across the three sites: all activities centered on ways to turn language and cultural diversity into educational assets for the math- ematics education of Latino/a students. The three regions in which this survey was administered have different po- litical contexts and differing policies and state laws that govern the language of instruction in their schools. California and Arizona both have legislation requiring the use of English during instruction, while New Mexico allows bilingual educa- tion programs for students identified as English language learners (ELLs). The various school districts from which the teachers come all have a high percentage of Latino/a student populations. Specifically, each of the schools in which the par- ticipating teachers work has approximately an 85% Latino/a student population and approximately one-third of the students are identified as ELLs. The teachers volunteered to participate in the CEMELA-associated professional development activities at their local university because they were seeking to learn about ways Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 48 to have a positive impact on their students, who were predominantly Latino/a, and were not paid either to participate in the professional development activities or to take the survey. Instruments The instrument used for the study was a 20-item survey designed by MJ Young & Associates. Items, in a Likert scale format, addressed teacher concerns regarding teaching Latino/a students. Table 1 describes the 20 items (Table 1: Appendix A). Survey items were categorized in three broad types of concerns: (a) concerns about one’s own promotion of a school climate free of discrimination and prejudices, or “self-concerns”; (b) concerns about the use of methods, materi- als, and strategies in class of specifically designed to cover the needs of linguisti- cally and culturally diverse students, or “task concerns”; and (c) “appropriate” adult role models at students’ homes and parents’ high expectations for their chil- dren, or “impact concerns.” In general, the categorization of items borrows from the work of Fuller (1969) and Swennen, Jörg and Korthagen (2004). In order to evaluate the reliability of the survey, a Chronbach alpha coefficient was calculat- ed. It yielded 0.9102, which indicates that the instrument is reliable. Each survey item was placed in one of the three categories using a factor analysis after survey administration. As an exploratory tool, factor analysis can be used to extract “factors,” that is, statistical entities that serve as classification axes. This technique is useful when reducing a dataset to a more manageable size while retaining as much of the original information as possible (Field, 2005). The major assumption in factor analysis is that factors represent real-world dimensions. Thus, researchers have to interpret statistical analyses and define the clusters of varia- bles aided by theoretical assumptions. In the study reported here, a factor analysis was carried out using SPSS software. Five factors were extracted from our data. Questions 6, 7, 10, 11, and 16 comprised one cluster, which we identified as “self- concerns” because these questionnaire items refer to discrimination and prejudic- es. Questions 12, 17, and 18 defined another cluster, which were associated with “impact concerns.” The other three factors were clustered in what we labeled “task concerns,” taking into consideration that these items refer, globally, to class methodology. The factor analysis suggested that our variable “task concerns” might be susceptible to a finer categorization; however, we decided to keep the three con- cern classifications as identified in the research literature (see Table 1: Appendix A for final classification of survey items). Chronbach coefficients for the three subsets of survey items were calculated and they suggest good reliability: 0.894, 0.891, and 0.920, respectively. In order to learn about the sample size effect, a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sample adequacy was included in the fac- tor analysis. The KMO statistic varies between 0 and 1 indicating the degree of Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 49 common variation (1 being a perfect communality among variables) and serves as an indicator of generalizability of the research data collected. In the present analy- sis, KMO measure yielded a factor of 0.768 and suggested a good sample size for generalization of research findings. Procedure Surveys were administered at the three regions during the last session of the professional development activities in either December 2006 or January 2007. The directions for the survey were: Below are questions some teachers have posed about working with culturally diverse students (e.g., Latinos). These questions may or may not be of concern to you at this point in your professional career. Read each question and then circle the number that represents the degree of concern the question holds for you (1 being extremely unimportant and 5 being extremely important). Teachers rated items individually using numbers from 1 to 5. At the end of the survey, some background information questions were included regarding years of teaching experience and personal ethnicity. This background information about the teachers was collected for the purpose of determining the correlation between years of experience, ethnicity, and concerns. Data Analyses Two different analyses were carried out. The purpose of the first analysis was to characterize the teacher concerns as a group of 68 teachers of Latino/a stu- dents. To do so, we calculated sums of teacher responses from 1 to 5 for each sur- vey item. These sums were divided by total responses to compute percentages of teacher responses to each option. We used a procedure similar to Mau and Kings’ (1996) to calculate a weighted average to indicate a level of concern for each sur- vey item. Therefore, the level of concern can vary from an average rating of 1 to 5 and would indicate how teacher responses distributed along the unimportant– important scale of the instrument used (Table 1: Appendix A). The purpose of the second analysis was to explain the differences within the data according to three variables that may have an impact on teacher concerns. In this study, the variables examined were years of teaching, teacher ethnicity, and geographical region of the teachers. To do so, we conducted several analyses of variance (ANOVA) tests to determine how well these three variables accounted for data variance. Because ANOVA requires a normally distributed interval de- pendent variable, we carried out a Shapiro-Wilk W test, and the test resulted in a Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 50 value of 0.97 with a p-value greater than 0.1; therefore, normality was fairly as- sumed. Limitations It is important to discuss some limitations of the research reported here. First, we recognize that there was only one item related to mathematics specifically. However, research literature has pointed out that content teachers are well-aware of the issues related to learning the content itself (Fletcher, Mountjoy & Bailey, 2011). Therefore, we assume that the inclusion of more content items specific to mathematics would probably have responses with a high degree of concern. A second limitation is the lack of follow-up surveys to the participating teachers af- ter they completed the professional activities. However, research has found that teachers’ concerns are stable along large periods of times (Melnick & Meister, 2008), and most often do not change even within a reform context (Charalambous & Philippou, 2010). Findings Teacher Concerns Characterization Table 1 (Appendix A) represents how the 68 teacher responses distributed along the unimportant–important scale. For each survey item, a percentage of re- sponses of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ratings of the unimportant-important scale were calcu- lated. The highest percentage for each survey item appears shadowed in Table 1. The majority of teachers rated self-concern items as “extremely unimportant.” On the contrary, almost all of the task and impact concerns were rated as “extremely important.” The last column of Table 1 (Appendix A) has the weighted average level of concern for each survey item. The level of self-concern ranged from 2.1 to 2.7, the average ratings of the task concerns ranged from 3.9 to 4.6, and the average ratings of the impact concerns ranged from 3.5 to 3.6. The most important con- cern referred to the methods and techniques that appeal to all students regardless of their cultural background (item 15 of task concerns). The least important con- cern referred to being accused of discrimination by Latino/a students (item 10 of self-concerns). In general, these teachers were highly concerned with issues about the appropriate methods and materials for linguistically and culturally diverse stu- dents and appropriate parent models, but they seemed to be less concerned about their promotion of a prejudice-free school climate. Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 51 Teacher Ethnicities and Concerns In reporting ethnicity, 24 teachers reported being “White,” 35 reported “Hispanic/Latino,” 3 reported “Asian or Pacific Islander,” 1 reported “African American,” 3 reported “other,” and 2 did not answer this question. Because teach- er concerns referred to teaching Latino/a students, data were broken down into two broad categories: Hispanic and non-Hispanic. ANOVA analysis for self- concerns suggests that non-Hispanic teachers are more concerned about their promotion of a prejudice-fee school climate than Hispanic teachers and this dif- ference is statistically significant (F = 4.23, p = 0.04). There were no significant differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic teachers for task and impact con- cerns (see Table 2: Appendix B for ANOVA summaries). To estimate the importance of the effect in the sample and, therefore, the likely importance of the effect in the population given that sample, a measure of effect size was calculated for the differences found for self-concerns between Hispanic and non-Hispanic teachers. An effect size is an objective and standard- ized measure of the magnitude of the observed effect. A common measure of ef- fect size is Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r). It is widely accepted that a corre- lation coefficient greater than 0.30 represents a medium effect and greater than 0.50 constitutes a large effect (Field, 2005). In this case, r was calculated using the between-group effect (SSM) and the total amount of variance in the data (SST) from the SPSS output for ANOVA (Field, 2005). Thus, r 2 = SSM / SST = 5.557 / 89.650, r = 0.25 represents a small effect size. Years of Teaching and Concerns As previously discussed, research on teacher concerns has linked types of concerns with teacher developmental approaches (Mok, 2005). Previous research findings have not been conclusive regarding how teacher concerns vary along teaching experience, so it seemed important in this study to relate level of concern with years of teaching experience. Using a factor analysis (component analysis defining 3 components), three groups of teachers were identified: new teachers with 0–7 years of teaching, more experienced teachers with 8–20 years of teach- ing, and most experienced teachers with more than 20 years of teaching. Our ANOVA analysis shows no significant differences among teachers in the types of concerns about social issues and teaching issues. There is, however, a difference among teachers when comparing concerns about student learning at a level of confidence below 0.10 (see Table 2: Appendix B). Post hoc test of Bonferroni was used in order to determine how groups compare among each other. While this test shows no differences between teachers with 0–7 years of experience and those with 8–20 years of experience, the most experienced teacher group (20+ years of experience) differed from the other groups of teachers. Thus, data sug- Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 52 gests that more experienced teachers are less concerned about student learning issues. This finding may reflect a more confident attitude that is developed through years of teaching experience. However, an effect size measure indicates a small effect (r = 0.29). The Different Regions and Concerns Table 3 (Appendix C) summarizes percentage of teachers and level of con- cern when taking into consideration the regions where the survey was adminis- tered. Teacher responses were categorized as being unconcerned (1 or 2 on the Likert scale), being neutral (3 on the Likert scale), and being concerned (4 or 5 on the Likert scale). Table 3 indicates percentages of teachers by region (Arizona, New Mexico, and California) as unconcerned (Un-C), neutral (N), or concerned (C) for each of the survey items. The highest percentage for each item is shaded in Table 3 in order to more easily view similarities and differences at the three re- gions. All the items regarding task and impact concerns were rated similarly at all regions; all items were items of concern (see Table 2: Appendix B for ANOVA summaries). However, teachers at the various regions rated self-concerns differ- ently. Arizona and New Mexico teachers indicated no concern on all items in the category of self-concerns. In contrast to California teachers, 92% of New Mexico teachers indicated no concern for being accused of discrimination, while 45% of California teachers indicated no concern for being accused of discrimination (item 10). The majority (61%) of California teachers were concerned with Latino/a students perceiving them as biased because the teachers’ backgrounds may be dif- ferent than the students’ (item 6). Additionally, 56% of California teachers were concerned with parents of Latino/a students being prejudiced against them (item 7). Forty-eight percent of California teachers were neutral with the issue of engag- ing in reverse discrimination (item 11) and 41% were concerned about stereotyp- ing students on the basis of race (item 16). ANOVA analysis for self-concerns suggests that these differences in rating among teachers of the three regions are statistically significant (F = 10.77, p = 0.000091). This effect is large (r = 0.5). The last section of Table 3 (Appendix C) has the level of concern (average rating) of each survey item at Arizona, New Mexico, and California. The most important concern in Arizona and California referred to the most effective meth- ods for teaching mathematics to Latino/a students (item 1). The most important concern in New Mexico referred to the methods and techniques that appeal to all students regardless of their cultural background (item 15). The least important concern at the three regions referred to being accused of discrimination by Lati- no/a students (item 10). Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 53 Discussion In the research reported here, a teacher-concern survey was administered to 68 K–8 teachers of high Latino/a population schools in Arizona, New Mexico, and California to characterize items as concerns about social issues in teaching Latino/a students, concerns about teaching Latino/a students, and concerns about Latino/a student learning. All teachers were participating in a variety of profes- sional development experiences associated with CEMELA at the three regions. We analyzed teacher concerns taking into consideration years of teaching and teachers’ ethnicities. Similarities and differences among regions were of special interest because CEMELA is a multi-university consortium, for which working with teachers of Latino/a students is a focus. Overall, teachers seemed to be highly concerned with teaching and learning issues independent of region, ethnicity, or years of teaching. Issues of teaching and learning as illustrated in the survey are about effective strategies and tech- niques that can be used for teaching, strategies to motivate culturally diverse stu- dents, relevant content, and meeting academic needs in addition to questions about expectations for students. These findings are consistent with past research reports on teacher concerns. For example, Melnick and Meister (2008) have re- ported that there are eight global issues that have worried teachers at all levels and in all disciplines in the last 30 years. In order of importance, these issues are: classroom discipline, motivating pupils, dealing with individual differences, as- sessing pupil’s work, relations with parents, organization of class work, insuffi- cient materials and supplies, and dealing with problems of individual pupils. All eight of these major issues can be classified under teaching and learning concerns (or task and impact concerns, as labeled in this study and in research literature on teacher concerns). Teacher concerns on social issues centered on students’ perceptions of teachers from a different cultural background, issues of prejudices, and discrimi- nation in general were examined. Concerns on social issues seemed to be impact- ed by teachers’ ethnicity and region. Because a concern has been defined in the field as a kind of emotional undertone that signals insecurity (Van den Berg & Vandenberghe, 1995), it seems reasonable to suppose that concerns on social is- sues involve a higher degree of emotional charge and, therefore, can vary more easily with contextual variables and social perceptions than teaching and learning concerns might. According to our results, teachers from Arizona and New Mexico were similar in that they were unconcerned with social issues. However, teachers from California were highly concerned on item 6 (“Will Latino/a students perceive me as biased simply because my background is different than theirs?”), item 7 (“Will parents of Latino/a students be prejudiced against me?”), and item 16 (“Will I ste- Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 54 reotype students on the basis of their race?”). These differences could possibly be explained when we take into consideration ethnic proportions of teachers at each region. In Arizona, 67% of the teachers were Hispanic/Latino and 27% were White. In New Mexico, 70% of the teachers were Hispanic/Latino and 15% were White. In California, 26% of the teachers were Hispanic/Latino and 61% were White. We speculate that teachers’ ethnicity is an important variable in consider- ing teacher concerns on social issues in teaching mathematics to Latino/a students. These differences in teachers’ ethnicities may be responsible for the differences that we found from teacher responses from the regions. It is necessary to replicate the survey with sample populations using a random layered sampling in order to test this hypothesis. As previously noted, in the results, all new teachers (0–7 years of teaching) reported low concerns on social issues such as cultural background, discrimina- tion, multiculturalism, and stereotype issues. We speculate that this may be the case due to new teachers’ general low awareness of the implications of these so- cial issues. New teachers may not consider these issues to play a role in their eve- ryday lives of teaching or they may consider social issues far removed from their mathematics classroom environments, as if the classroom exists insulated from society at large. These findings concur with evidence found in studies of teacher candidates that show that those who become teachers tend to be young people who are typically not politically active in social issues or are distant from social issues, and, therefore, have a limited firsthand awareness of or engagement in many of the nation’s major social issues (Howey & Zimpher, 1996). Gutiérrez and Dixon-Román (2011) note that students of color continue to be framed in comparison to their White counterparts, and this comparison then becomes nor- malized, as if it is a “natural” way of thinking about achievement, rather than fo- cusing on the excellence of students of color or the many other ways subordinated students may make sense of their experiences with mathematics. Because this is a highly political and unfortunate “common picture,” we wonder if it lends itself to unintentional, unexamined, or unwitting prejudice by educators. This topic merits a discussion at a more in-depth level than can be provided within this context. Concluding Thoughts Worries and concerns have been reported to play a role in teachers’ work (Boz, 2008; Boz & Boz, 2010) and is, therefore, an important area for research. Theoretical foundations on teacher concerns has been grounded on Fuller’s (1969) work which distinguishes three types, levels or phases of concerns: self-concerns, task-concerns, and impact-concerns. Empirical evidence, especially with teachers in urban schools, suggests that teachers tend to concern themselves with issues of task and impact (Fletcher, Mountjoy & Bailey, 2011; Melnick & Meister, 2008). Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 55 The research reported here represents an effort to learn about urban teachers’ con- cerns in contexts of Latino/a student populations. Moreover, mathematics teachers of Latino/a students are an important population to investigate given that research has found that meeting the needs of culturally diverse students requires high ex- pectations and an “additive approach” to their education (Valenzuela, 1999). In summary, urban mathematics teachers of Latino/a students considered self-concerns about social issues as globally unimportant. As a reminder, self- concerns about social issues pertain to teachers’ anxiety about their ability to suc- cessfully undertake demands stemming from social issues on cultural diversity such as racism, discrimination, or prejudices. This finding could mean that preju- diced labels do not bias teachers’ perceptions, and that these teachers therefore do not consider Latino/a students as lacking skills to perform successfully in school. Additionally, teachers may feel that because they have personal relationships with their students that social issues, such as prejudice or discrimination, could not possibly enter in their everyday teaching lives. Although teachers’ concerns about social issues were of low importance overall, there was a significant difference between the Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic/Latino teachers. It could be that non-Latino teachers were more concerned about social issues in teaching Latino/a students than Latino/a teachers because they feel like cultural strangers to their Latino/a students; these teachers, therefore, may have more concern about social issues, such as being accused of discrimination or being accused of having biases against Latino/a students. Further research needs to be done with emphasis on mathematics teacher concerns and their interaction with other kinds of variables such as teacher per- formance, impact on student learning, and beliefs about teaching. Teacher ethnici- ty seems to be an important variable to take into account in future analyses of teacher concerns with respect to self-concerns on social issues. We can speculate that non-Hispanic/Latino teachers may fear being rejected by Hispanic/Latino students. Non-Hispanic/Latino teachers may also feel unprepared to cope with a high proportion of Hispanic/Latino students. It would be worthwhile to examine the reverse—non-White teachers’ concerns in schools of a high percentage of White students—to further investigate mathematics teachers’ perceptions when teaching students of a different cultural background. Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Virginia Horak and Marta Civil from The University of Arizona and Sylvia Celedón-Patichis from The University of New Mexico, who reviewed previous of this arti- cle and offered support and feedback. 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Civil (Eds.), Latinos/as and mathematics education: Research on learning and teaching in classrooms and communities (pp. 37–62). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 59 APPENDIX A Table 1 Percentage of Teachers that Rated Survey Items from 1 (Unimportant) to 5 (Important) Survey Items Percentage of responses on Unimportant – Important Scale Level of Concern (average rating) 1 2 3 4 5 Self-Concerns About Social Issues in Teaching Latino Students 6. Will Latino students perceive me as biased simply because my background is different than theirs? 31 18 21 18 12 2.6 7. Will parents of Latino students be prejudiced against me? 31 18 22 15 14 2.6 10. Will Latino students accuse me of discrimination? 42 28 17 8 5 2.1* 11. In attending to multicultural issues, will I be engaging in re- verse discrimination? 29 17 27 13 14 2.7 16. Will I stereotype students on the basis of their race? 39 17 19 8 17 2.5 Task-Concerns About Teaching Latino Students 1. What are the most effective methods for teaching mathematics to Latino students? 3 1 9 34 53 4.3 2. What strategies should I use when working with Latino stu- dents? 3 4 6 37 50 4.3 3. What specific techniques and materials motivate Latino stu- dents? 4 1 10 30 55 4.3 4. How does the home environment of Latino students impact their receptivity to school? 3 6 13 28 50 4.2 5. In what specific ways does family culture affect Latino students’ performance in school? 0 6 12 38 44 4.2 8. How do I make lessons and content relevant to Latino students? 4 0 10 32 54 4.3 9. What kinds of things can I do to meet both the academic and emotional needs of Latino students in my class? 3 1 6 34 56 4.4 13. How should I vary my teaching methods when dealing with culturally diverse students? 2 2 8 32 56 4.4 14. How do I effectively teach a class of students whose ability and experiential levels are widely diverse? 0 3 6 23 68 4.5 15. What are the methods and techniques that appeal to all students regardless of their cultural background? 0 5 0 26 69 4.6** 19. What criteria do I use in selecting materials related to Latino culture? 5 6 15 41 33 3.9 20. How can I help all students relate to those who have different backgrounds in my classroom? 2 2 17 25 54 4.3 continued on next page Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 60 continued from previous page APPENDIX A Table 1 Percentage of Teachers that Rated Survey Items from 1 (Unimportant) to 5 (Important) Impact-Concerns About Latino Student Learning 12. Do Latino students have appropriate adult role models? 3 16 31 23 27 3.5 17. Do parents of Latino students possess high expectations for their children? 10 11 23 26 30 3.6 18. Are Latino students’ home environments an adequate model for academic study? 9 13 24 27 27 3.5 J. M. Young & Associates (2005) * Least important concern ** Most important concern Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 61 APPENDIX B Table 2 ANOVA Results for Teachers’ Concerns Taking into Consideration Teacher Ethnicity, Years of Teaching, and Region Self-Concerns About Social Issues in Teaching Latino Students Teacher Ethnicity Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Non-Hispanic Teachers 2.8 1.0 4.23 0.04** Hispanic Teachers 2.2 1.2 Years of teaching Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p 0 – 7 2.5 1.2 0.247 0.78 8 – 20 2.5 1.3 20 + 2.2 1.0 Region Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Arizona 2.2 1.0 10.77 0.000091*** New Mexico 1.8 0.8 California 3.3 1.1 Task-Concerns About Teaching Latino Students Teacher Ethnicity Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Non-Hispanic Teachers 4.3 0.4 0.04 0.85 Hispanic Teachers 4.3 0.8 Years of teaching Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p 0 – 7 4.4 0.4 1.025 0.365 8 – 20 4.2 0.8 20 + 4.2 0.7 Region Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Arizona 4.3 0.7 1.9 0.15 New Mexico 4.1 0.7 California 4.5 0.4 Impact-Concerns About Latino Students Learning Teacher Ethnicity Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Non-Hispanic Teachers 3.4 1.1 0.8 0.37 Hispanic Teachers 3.6 1.2 Years of teaching Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p 0 – 7 3.5 1.3 2.636 0.08* 8 – 20 3.8 1.0 20 + 2.9 1.1 Region Mean Standard Deviation F-ratio p Arizona 3.2 1.2 2.78 0.07* New Mexico 3.9 1.0 California 3.8 1.0 * p<0.01 ** p < 0.05 *** p<0.1 Anhalt & Rodríguez Pérez Teaching Latino/a Students Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 62 APPENDIX C Table 3 Percentage of Teachers from Arizona (AZ), New Mexico (NM) and California (CA) Either Un- concerned (Un-C), Neutral (N) or Concerned (C) for Each Survey Item Item # Percentage of Teachers & Level of Concern Unconcerned (Un-C), Neutral (N) or Concerned (C) Levels of Concern at Differ- ent Regions (Average rating) ARIZONA NEW MEXICO CALIFORNIA Un-C N C Un-C N C Un-C N C AZ NM CA Self-Concerns About Social Issues in Teaching Latino Students 6 55 29 16 72 14 14 26 13 61 2.3 2.1 3.5 7 55 29 16 76 15 8 26 17 56 2.3 1.9 3.4 10 76 17 7 92 0 8 45 32 23 1.9* 1.4* 2.8* 11 51 17 31 69 23 8 19 48 34 2.6 1.9 3.3 16 67 17 16 75 8 17 32 27 41 2.1 2.0 3.3 Task-Concerns About Teaching Latino Students 1 0 10 90 21 21 57 0 0 100 4.5** 3.4 4.7** 2 6 3 90 21 14 65 0 4 96 4.3 3.6 4.6 3 6 10 84 14 7 79 0 13 87 4.3 4.0 4.5 4 13 16 71 14 13 74 0 9 91 4.0 4.0 4.4 5 6 19 74 14 14 72 0 0 100 4.1 4.0 4.4 8 3 13 84 14 14 72 0 9 91 4.4 3.7 4.6 9 3 10 87 14 0 85 0 4 96 4.3 4.2 4.6 13 3 7 89 7 14 79 0 5 96 4.4 4.1 4.6 14 7 10 83 0 7 93 0 4 96 4.4 4.7 4.7 15 10 0 90 0 0 100 0 0 100 4.5 4.9** 4.6 19 13 13 73 7 14 79 9 18 72 3.8 4.1 4.0 20 3 13 83 7 21 71 0 18 82 4.3 4.1 4.4 Impact-Concerns About Latino Students Learning 12 27 33 40 8 23 69 14 36 50 3.2 3.9 3.8 17 34 17 50 10 20 70 9 32 59 3.3 3.8 3.9 18 31 31 38 16 8 75 14 23 63 3.1 3.8 3.9 * Least important concern ** Most important concern