Putting the “Urban” in Mathematics Education Scholarship Journal of Urban Mathematics Education December 2018, Vol. 11, No. 1&2, pp. 26–30 ©JUME. http://education.gsu.edu/JUME WILLIAM F. TATE is chair of the Department of Education, director of the St. Louis Center for Inquiry in Science Teaching and Learning, and Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, Cam- pus Box 1183, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899; e-mail: wtate@wustl.edu. He is immediate past presi- dent of the American Educational Research Association. Tate’s interdisciplinary scholarship con- centrates on two main areas: mathematics, science, and technology education, specifically, in met- ropolitan America; and the social determinants of education and health disparities. COMMENTARY Putting the “Urban” in Mathematics Education Scholarship1 William F. Tate Washington University in St. Louis ow many candidates running for local, state, or federal office in the 2008 elec- tions in the United States highlighted the importance of urban America as a site of opportunity, or even challenge? Briggs (2005) argued that the geography of opportunity in education, employment, safety, health, and other vital areas of the next generation are invisible in the nation’s public life and agenda. In her classic book titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1992), the late Jane Ja- cobs argued a successful city neighborhood is a place that is sufficiently aware of its problems so it is not defeated by them. In contrast, an unsuccessful neighbor- hood is a place that is engulfed by its deficiencies and is increasingly more power- less before them. She argued we Americans are poor at managing city neighbor- hoods as documented by the long collection of failures. Her treatise is one of nu- merous scholarly projects that underscore the unique importance of recognizing the urban context as a powerful influence on human development broadly defined (Or- field, 2002; Pattillo, 2007; Rusk, 2003). The purpose of this commentary is to serve as a warning that developing and testing theories are central to making urban mathematics scholarship a visible re- search enterprise. More specifically, I will argue that there are lessons to be learned from the social sciences literature that can inform the advancement of a robust, the- oretically based, empirical project in urban mathematics education research. In ad- dition, these fields of social science are part of the rationale for why putting the “urban” in mathematics education scholarship is important. Perhaps there are some scholars who accept the notion of research focused on the urban context as relevant and of great consequence. They understand that urban cities and communities are unique contexts that require research and policy evaluation to support their govern- ance function. Not everyone accepts this notion. Is there a growing research litera- ture related to urban communities in mathematics education? Unfortunately, the 1 Originally published in the inaugural December 2008 issue of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education (JUME); see http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/19/2. H http://education.gsu.edu/JUME mailto:wtate@wustl.edu http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/19/2 Tate Commentary Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 11, No. 1&2 27 answer is clear. Too many education researchers ignore geospatial considerations. My hope is that the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education will create a new marketplace where theories related to urban cities and metropolitan regions across the world can be empirically tested and evaluated. A major point of emphasis for the scholar interested in urban mathematics ed- ucation is theory building and empirical evaluation. If there are no theories (small or grand) to test and evaluate akin to the efforts in other social science research, then the field will yield little more than polemic and empty ideology. To date, both are plentiful. A brief review of the social sciences literature will illustrate the im- portance of geography as part of theoretical construction and testing. Urban eco- nomics is a branch of microeconomics that examines urban spatial structure and the location of households and firms (O’Flaherty, 2005). The urban economics litera- ture includes the study of industrial clusters and technology-based hubs in metro- politan communities across the globe (Gordon & McCann, 2000; Sorenson, 2003). How industries cluster is directly related to a range of social factors including em- ployment opportunities and tax capacity. Incidentally, these two factors influence the quality and financial support for education (Orfield, 2002). Employment rates and tax capacity are important constructs in school finance. Moreover, employment opportunities and tax capacity are a part of an expanding literature in urban sociol- ogy. The point is that economic theories make it possible to test the nature and ex- tent of relationships within economics and across fields of study including sociolo- gy. Urban sociology is the scientific study of social relations, human life, and hu- man behavior in metropolitan areas. In this field, the Chicago School has been a major influence. For example, both social disorganization theory and the spatial mismatch hypothesis have been tested and studied as a part of this urban research tradition (Bursik, 1988; Foster-Bey, 2006; Wilson, 1996). The point here is not to review these two theories; rather, the intent is to make clear that there are important theoretical projects being tested and vigorously debated. If urban mathematics edu- cation research is to be taken seriously, this kind of theoretical and empirical inter- action should be the norm. Theory-driven, empirical research is the norm in other fields of social science as well. The political science literature includes a sub-field in urban politics (Brunori, 2003; Judd & Swanstrom, 2008). Urban regime theory is prominent in this field (Stone, 1993). The urban public health literature includes the examination of medical resources, risk factors, and disease (Airhihenbuwa & Liburd, 2006; Douglas, Esmundo, & Bloom, 2000; Jones-Webb & Wall, 2008). Epidemiological theories and method are central to urban public research. The literatures of com- munity psychology and the developmental sciences examine child and adolescent development and cognitive outcomes in a variety of urban settings (Lee, 2008; Spencer, 2008; Spencer, Dupree, Cunningham, Harpalani, & Muñoz-Miller, 2003). In a range of research fields the study of social interaction in the urban metropolitan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microeconomics Tate Commentary Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 11, No. 1&2 28 regions of the world is ongoing. This study of social interaction has been the case in education research as well. Journals such as Urban Education and Education and Urban Society have articles that are retrievable in electronic databases dating back to the 1960s. Urban Education published a special issue focused on mathematics education (Tate, 1996). In sum, there is a long history of research that has taken se- riously urban geography and related social interactions. This history suggests there is an intellectual space for urban mathematics education research. This intellectual space calls for scholars to fill the void. Urban mathematics education is a rich topic with significant policy implica- tions. During the 1980s and 1990s, both the Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation invested in mathematics education reform efforts and related evaluation studies in cities across the United States (Campbell, Bowden, Kramer, & Ya- kimowski, 2003; Kim, Crasco, Blank, & Smithson, 2001; Silver & Stein, 1996; Webb & Romberg, 1994). These large-scale interventions and evaluation studies brought attention to the topic of research and urban mathematics education. There is other mathematics education research focused on course-taking, teacher quality, and assessment practice that has a spatial dimension (Anderson & Tate, 2008). The geography of opportunity has been central to the mathematics education research involving urban communities. However, there are two interrelated challenges that must be addressed if this scholarship is to flourish going forward. The first challenge involves theory. There is a need for theory building, test- ing, revision, and retesting. There are important lessons to be learned from closely examining the history of research in urban economics, urban sociology, urban health, urban politics, and community psychology. A second challenge is related to collective cognition. In their award-winning book titled Building Civic Capacity: The Politics of Reforming Urban Schools, urban regime theorists, Stone, Henig, Jones, and Pierannunzi (2001) contended that collective cognition matters when the goal is to take on the task of problem solving in urban school reform. To this end, I have argued elsewhere that urban communities are in desperate need of research consortiums where the distinguishing features are comprehensive data archives that provide sustained opportunities to study and learn about human development in the region (Tate, 2008). The data archives should include at minimum the theoretically important measures related to urban mathematics education. In addition, this intel- lectual space is where researchers and practitioners should test and retest the theo- retical project and push the boundaries of new knowledge. The challenge is to build theories and models that realistically reflect how geography and opportunity in mathematics education interact. If this challenge is addressed, the field will be one step closer to making scholarship in urban mathematics education visible. Tate Commentary Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol. 11, No. 1&2 29 Acknowledgments A special thank you is extended to Celia Keiko Anderson, Debra Barco, Richard Milner, and Doro- thy White for their feedback on this commentary. This article is based on research and development supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. ESI-0227619. Any opinions, find- ings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed here are those of the author and do not neces- sarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. References Airhihenbuwa, C. O., & Liburd, L. (2006). Eliminating health disparities in the African American population: The interface of culture, gender, and power. Health Education Behavior, 33(4), 488–501. Anderson, C. R., & Tate, W. F. (2008). Still separate, still unequal: Democratic access to mathematics in U.S. schools. In L. English (Ed.), International handbook of research in mathematics education (pp. 299–318). 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