Journal of Urban Mathematics Education December 2013, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 1–6 ©JUME. http://education.gsu.edu/JUME DAVID W. STINSON is an associate professor of mathematics education in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in the College of Education, at Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3978, Atlanta, GA, 30303; e-mail: dstinson@gsu.edu. His research interests include exploring socio-cultural, -historical, and -political aspects of mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning from a critical postmodern theoretical (and methodological) perspective. He is a co- founder and current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education. EDITORIAL On Being a Hardliner on Issues of Race and Culture in Mathematics Education Research1 David W. Stinson Georgia State University n the past, when I have been a discussant or respondent at conferences, after I have provided my remarks, I am often accused of being somewhat of a “hardliner” when it comes to the inclusion of issues of “race”/ethnicity and culture, or, more gen- erally, the challenges and promises of exploring “diversity” (broadly defined) in mathematics education research. So this afternoon, it’s with great pleasure that I pro- vide some briefs remarks in response to Professor Na’ilah Nasir’s (2013) plenary ad- dress “Why Should Mathematics Educators Care about Race and Culture?” I believe that my hardliner image has evolved over the years because more often than not I of- fend folks (unintentionally) by strongly arguing for an explicit and clear focus on the issues of race and culture in their projects (see, e.g., Stinson, 2011). This call for an explicit and clear focus is especially evident when projects have been positioned un- der the larger—and I might add, increasingly popular—umbrella of “equity work” in mathematics education research. I believe that such projects should keep both culture and mathematics education in the foreground (and here, when I say mathematics ed- ucation, I am including not only the teaching and learning of mathematics but also the discipline). In actuality, I believe that all mathematics education research should pay serious attention to issues of race, culture, and diversity, broadly defined—but that’s just me. The increasing popularity of positioning projects under the “equity” umbrella is clearly evident in grant proposals and submitted manuscripts; given that, the words equity and its derivative, “diversity,” have become increasingly important within the discourses of funding agencies and editorial boards. That is to say, it appears that more and more folks are “positioning” their research as equity or diversity projects. But more often than not, I can see the complexities of mathematics education in the 1 This editorial is a revised version of remarks delivered at the 35th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Chi- cago, IL, November 15, 2013; the remarks were in response to Professor Na’ilah Suad Nasir’s (2013) plenary address “Why Should Mathematics Educators Care about Race and Culture?” (See Stinson’s reaction to Nasir for accompanying PowerPoint presentation.) I http://education.gsu.edu/JUME mailto:dstinson@gsu.edu http://www.pmena.org/pastconferences/2013/index.html Stinson Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 2 foreground—after all, we’re mathematics educators. But the complexities of issues around race, culture, diversity, or equity, in general, somehow slip in the background or are left to the reader to make some kind of implicit connections. Or, worst yet, these issues are stripped of their complexities and reduced to “labels” or “categories” in which children, youth, and communities belong; unfortunately, the latter is too of- ten the case (see, e.g., Lubienski & Bowen, 2000; Parks & Schmeichel, 2012). As I make this critique of some of the work positioned under the equity umbrel- la and mathematics education research in general, I clearly understand the difficulty of keeping issues of race, culture, or diversity, broadly defined, equally in the fore- ground along with issues of mathematics teaching and learning. It was not too long ago that the JUME Editorial Team provided what we believed to be a much needed space for intellectual discourse around the very issue of the importance of maintain- ing a “both–and” approach in mathematics education research by publishing a collec- tion of critical commentaries (see Battista, 2010; Confrey, 2010; Martin, Gholson, & Leonard, 2010). These commentaries were in response to Kathleen Heid’s Journal for Research in Mathematics Education editorial “Where’s the Math (in Mathematics Education Research)?” (Heid, 2010) and to a National Council of Teachers of Math- ematics Research Presession symposium “Keeping the Mathematics in Mathematics Education Research” (Ball, Battista, Guershon, Thompson, & Confrey, 2010). We can hypothesize about the many reasons that folks have the tendency to let the issues of race, culture, or again, more broadly, issues of diversity slip to the back- ground, or to avoid them altogether:  Restrictions on the length of manuscripts (That is, can one do justice to both culture and mathematics in a single grant proposal or manuscript?);  Concerns or fears of “political correctness” in talking about issues such as race, racism, and White supremacy (That is, White folks of a certain age in the United States have been reared in a discourse of political correctness where it is not “proper” to talk about race and other such “uncomfortable” things.); or  Lacking the knowledge of how to engage in the sheer volume of literature that addresses is- sues of race, culture, gender, language, socioeconomic class, and so forth (That is, in our “formal” schooling in becoming mathematics educators and researchers, how much time was devoted in our doctoral programs to exploring, in meaningful ways, larger socio- cultural and -political issues of human existence, and how they relate to mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning?). In short, doing race work, culture work, diversity work, or equity work in mathemat- ics education research is just hard to do.2 As I struggle in doing both–and in my own work, I often return to a diagram that has become quite familiar: the Instructional Triangle. This diagram, originat- 2 For a collective discussion of the challenges and promises of doing race and culture work in mathematics education research and teacher education, see JUME Special Issue: Volume 6, Num- ber 2 (Stinson & Spencer, 2013). http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/issue/view/12 http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/issue/view/12 Stinson Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 3 ing from a Consortium for Policy Research in Education paper (Cohen & Ball, 1999), has become somewhat of a standard model when considering the teaching and learning context. The model was further refined specifically for mathematics education in the book Adding it Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics (Na- tional Research Council, 2001). I return to this figure in my own research to keep me grounded in thinking about what my work specifically has to do with the dynamics of mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning as I bring issues of race, culture, and diversity, broadly defined, to the foreground. Other researchers have provided extensions, elaborations, or rethinkings of the Instructional Triangle. For instance, Nipper and Sztajn (2008) extend the Instructional Triangle into the challenges of mathematics teachers’ professional development. Herbst and Chazan (2012) elaborate on the Instructional Triangle to illustrate how the nature of mathematics instructional activity might help in justifying teachers’ actions in mathematics teaching. And Bullock and I (Stinson & Bullock, 2012) rethink the Instructional Triangle as we apply critical postmodern theory and place each of the vertices under erasure (cf. Derrida, 1974/1997). But the extension, elaboration, or rethinking that I turn to most often—and has become my standard—is the one provided by Weissglass (2002) in Figure 1. Figure 1. The many factors that affect student learning (Weissglass, 2002, p. 35). From “Inequity in Mathematics Education: Questions for Educators,” by J. Weissglass, 2002, The Mathematics Educator, 12(2), p. 35. Copyright 2002 by the Mathematics Education Student Association. Re- printed by permission. Stinson Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 4 As I have argued elsewhere (Stinson, 2006), I believe that Weissglass ap- propriately positions the triangle in its proper perspective. In that, when doing re- search in mathematics education—or dare I say, ethical research in mathematics education—explorations of mathematics teaching and learning must become much broader than what is possible within the confines of the initial Instructional Triangle (Cohen & Ball, 1999). It is important to note, however, that throughout the construction of the orig- inal model, Cohen and Ball (1999) consistently made reference to the “environ- mental” contexts in which the Instructional Triangle is embedded. But in specifi- cally naming some of these socio-cultural, -historical, and -political contexts— contexts that too often marginalized particular students, families, and communi- ties—Weissglass (2002), I believe, is asking us to adopt a degree of social con- sciousness and responsibility in seeing the wider socio-cultural and -political pic- ture of mathematics education (Gates & Vistro-Yu, 2003). Adopting such a stance requires us to delve deeper into how the social, political, cultural, and economic discourses of society in general affect the construction of students, teachers, and mathematics—and the possibilities and impossibilities of equitable and just math- ematics teaching and learning. In short, it requires taking the “socio-political turn” in mathematics education research (Gutiérrez, 2013, p. 40). In her talk this afternoon, I believe that Professor Nasir (2013) has asked us to engage in the ethical act of adopting a degree of social consciousness and re- sponsibility in seeing the wider social and political picture of mathematics teach- ing and learning. And here my remarks are specific to some of the work that she and her colleagues from the National Science Foundation Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center are engaged in currently (see http://life- slc.org). In particular, I pull from a paper titled “Learning Pathways: A Conceptual Tool for Understanding Culture and Learning” (Nasir et al., 2013). In this paper, Professor Nasir and colleagues describe a developing framework for “conceptual- izing learning as occurring along culturally organized learning pathways—the se- quences of consequential participations and transitions in learning activities that move one toward greater social recognition as competent in particular learning domains and situations” (p. 2). What struck me about Professor Nasir and colleagues’ (2013) developing culturally organized framework for learning is that it is, concurrently, simple and complex. And one really has to possess poststructural sensibilities for this seemly contradictory remark to not be contradictory. Nevertheless, the learning pathways draw attention to—  The resources students have access to (or not);  The ways that students are positioned as learners (or not); and  The role that identity—that is, the process of becoming—plays in learning. http://life-slc.org/ http://life-slc.org/ Stinson Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 5 According to the culturally organized framework, there are four key characteris- tics to learning pathways. Characteristic 1 – Learning pathways are taken up in relation to identities, and have a relational, affective, and motivational compo- nent: Key here is the acknowledgement that a student’s identity (or her or his be- coming) can be supported (or not) by the normalizing discourses and discursive practices, and that identity has a critical influence on a students’ motivation to continue on particular learning pathways (or not). Characteristic 2 – Learning pathways are socially constructed by self and others, and they build up over mul- tiple instances: Key here is the acknowledgement that learning pathways are it- erative, building up over multiple instances with significant social others being important in supporting (or not) the construction and maintenance of particular learning pathways. Characteristic 3 – Learning pathways are made up of related sets of practices and routines, which over time support repertoires of practices, often organized with one or more goals in mind: Key here is the acknowledge- ment that learning pathways are constructed and constituted through socially and historically accepted discourses and discursive practices that are made available (or not), and are shaped and reshaped over multiple times, in both informal and formal spaces. And Characteristic 4 – Learning pathways include enactments of privilege and marginalization that occur in relation to structural constraints and supports from families and institutions: Key here is the acknowledgement that structures and the normalizing processes and practices of institutions serve to marginalize some students as they privilege others, and that absent of support from families members (extended or otherwise) some learning pathways are ef- fectively closed off for certain students. So going back to the Instructional Triangle—after all, it is mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning that we’re researching. What if we overlay the Instructional Triangle with Professor Nasir and colleagues’ (2013) learning framework that conceptualizes learning as occurring along culturally organized learning pathways? But then again, for me, that just brings us back to Figure 1. So, I guess, in the end, similar to Professor Nasir, I am a hardliner when calling for an explicit and clear focus on issues of race, ethnicity, culture, language, so- cio-economic class, and so on when doing ethical work in mathematics teaching and learning. —But then again, that’s just me. References Ball, D. L., Battista, M., Harel, G., Thompson, P. W., & Confrey, J. E. (2010, April). Keeping the mathematics in mathematics education research. Research symposium at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Research Presession, San Diego, CA. Battista, M. T. (2010). Engaging students in meaningful mathematics learning: Different perspectives, complementary goals. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 3(2), 34–46. Retrieved from http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/115/58. http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/115/58 Stinson Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 6, No. 2 6 Cohen, D. K., & Ball, D. L. (1999). Instruction, capacity, and improvement. The Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Retrieved from http://www.cpre.org/instruction-capacity-and-improvement. Confrey, J. (2010). “Both And”—Equity and mathematics: A Response to Martin, Gholson, and Leon- ard. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 3(2), 25–33. Retrieved from http://ed- osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/108/53. Derrida, J. (1997). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans., Corrected ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1974) Gates, P., & Vistro-Yu, C. P. (2003). Is mathematics for all? In A. J. Bishop, M. A. Clements, C. Kei- tel, J. Kilpatrick, & F. K. S. Leung (Eds.), Second international handbook of mathematics edu- cation (Vol. 1, pp. 31–73). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Gutiérrez, R. (2013). The sociopolitical turn in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Math- ematics Education, 44, 37–68. Herbst, P., & Chazan, D. (2012). On the instructional triangle and sources of justification for action in mathematics teaching. Retrieved from http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/91281. Heid, M. K. (2010). Where’s the math (in mathematics education research)? Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 41, 102–103. Lubienski, S. T., & Bowen, A. (2000). Who’s counting? A survey of mathematics education research 1982–1998. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31, 626–633. Martin, D. B., Gholson, M. L., & Leonard, J. (2010). Mathematics as gatekeeper: Power and privilege in the production of knowledge. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 3(2), 12–24. Re- trieved from http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/95/57. Nasir, N. S. (2013, November). Why should mathematics educators care about race and culture? Ple- nary address delivered at the 35th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the In- ternational Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Chicago, IL. Nasir, N. S., Barron, B., Pea, R., Goldman, S., Stevens, R., Bell, P., & McKinney de Royston, M. (2013). Learning pathways: A conceptual tool for understanding culture and learning. Manu- script submitted for publication. National Research Council. (2001). Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics. In J. Kilpatrick, J. Swafford, & B. Findell (Eds.), Mathematics Learning Study Committee, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Nipper, K., & Sztajn, P. (2008). Expanding the instructional triangle: Conceptualizing mathematics teacher development. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 11, 333–341. Parks, A. N., & Schmeichel, M. (2012). Obstacles to addressing race and ethnicity in the mathematics education literature. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 43, 238–252. Stinson, D. W. (2006). African American male adolescents, schooling (and mathematics): Deficiency, rejection, and achievement. Review of Educational Research, 76, 477–506. Stinson, D. W. (2011). “Race” in mathematics education research: Are we a community of cowards? [Editorial]. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 4(1), 1–6. Retrieved from http://ed- osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/139/83. Stinson, D. W., & Bullock, E. C. (2012). Transitioning into contemporary theory: Critical postmodern theory in mathematics education research. In L. R. Van Zoest, J. J. Lo, & J. L. Kratky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1163–1169). Kalamazoo, MI: West- ern Michigan University. Stinson, D. W., & Spencer, J. A. (Eds.). (2013). Privilege and Oppression in the Mathematics Prepara- tion of Teacher Educators [Special issue]. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 6(1). Weissglass, J. (2002). Inequity in mathematics education: Questions for educators. The Mathematics Educator, 12(2), 34–39. http://www.cpre.org/instruction-capacity-and-improvement http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/108/53 http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/108/53 http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/91281 http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/95/57 http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/139/83 http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/139/83