In this article, the authors present an analysis of two views of culture reflected in equity scholarship and their implications on research and mathematics teaching. In doing so, they draw on two interrelated theoretical orientations to describe instructional practices that support equitable learning opportunities in mathematics classrooms. These two orientations are grounded in contrasting views of culture. They discuss the contributions of and the tensions associated with each orientation, and argue for a research agenda that focuses primarily on what is called the Cultural Participation Orientation. In addition, the authors discuss the usefulness of drawing on both orientations in understanding equitable instructional practices in urban mathematics classrooms.
AuK. (1980). Participation structures in a reading lesson with Hawaiian children: Analysis of a culturally appropriate instructional event. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 2, 91-115.
2.
BallD. L.CohenD. K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional development. In Darling-HammondL.SkyesG. (Eds.), Teaching as the learning professional: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 3-32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
3.
BallD. L.SleepL.BoerstT.BassH. (2009). Combining the development of practice and the practice of development in teacher education. Elementary School Journal, 109, 458-476.
4.
BaumanZ. (1999). Culture as praxis. London, England: Sage.
5.
BirkyG. D.ChazanD.MorrisK. (2013). In search of coherence and meaning: Madison Morgan’s experiences and motivations as an African American learner and teacher. Teachers College Record, 115(2), 1-42.
6.
BoalerJ. (2002). Learning from teaching: Exploring the relationship between reform curriculum and equity. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 33, 239-258.
7.
BoalerJ.GreenoJ. G. (2000). Identity, agency, and knowing in mathematical worlds. In BoalerJ. (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 45-82). Stamford, CT: Ablex.
8.
BoalerJ.StaplesM. (2008). Creating mathematical futures through an equitable teaching approach: The case of Railside School. Teachers College Record, 110, 608-645.
9.
BorkoH.JacobsJ.EiteljorgE.PittmanM. E. (2009). Video as a tool for fostering productive discussions in mathematics professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 417-436.
10.
BourdieuP. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
11.
BrennerM. E. (1994). A communication framework for mathematics: Exemplary instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse students. In McLeodB. (Ed.), Language and learning: Educating linguistically diverse students (pp. 233-268). Albany: State University of New York Press.
12.
BrunerJ. S. (1996). The culture of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
13.
CalhounC. (1996). Social theory and the politics of identity. In CalhounC. (Ed.), Social theory and the politics of identity (pp. 9-36). Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.
14.
CarraherT. N.SchliemannA. D. (1985). Computation routines prescribed by schools: Help or hindrance?Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 16, 37-44.
15.
CazdenC. (1988). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
16.
ChazanD.BrantlingerA.ClarkL. M.EdwardsA. R. (2013). What mathematics education might learn from the work of well-respected African American mathematics teachers in urban schools. Teachers College Record, 115(2), 1-40.
17.
CivilM. (1994, April). Connecting the home and school: Funds of knowledge for mathematics teaching and learning (Draft). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
18.
CivilM. (2002). Culture and mathematics: A community approach. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 23, 133-148.
19.
CivilM. (2007). Building on community knowledge: An avenue to equity in mathematics education. In NasirN.CobbP. (Eds.), Improving access to mathematics: Diversity and equity in the classroom (pp. 105-117). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
20.
CivilM.AndradeR. (2002). Transitions between home and school mathematics: Rays of hope amidst the passing clouds. In de AbreuG.BishopA. J.PresmegN. C. (Eds.), Transitions between contexts of mathematical practices (pp. 149-169). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
21.
CobbP. (1998). Theorizing about mathematical conversations and learning from practice. For the Learning of Mathematics, 18(1), 46-48.
22.
CobbP.GresalfiM.HodgeL. L. (2009). An interpretive scheme for analyzing the identities that students develop in mathematics classrooms. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40, 40-68.
23.
CobbP.HodgeL. L. (2002). A relational perspective on issues of cultural diversity and equity as they play out in the mathematics classroom. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4, 249-284.
24.
CobbP.StephanM.McClainK.GravemeijerK. (2001). Participating in classroom mathematical practices. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10, 113-164.
25.
CrawfordK. (1996). Vygotskian approaches in human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 31, 43-62.
26.
de AbreuG. (1995). Understanding how children experience the relationship between home and school mathematics. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2, 119-142.
27.
de AbreuG. (2000). Relationships between macro and micro socio-cultural contexts: Implications for the study of interactions in the mathematics classroom. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 41, 1-29.
28.
EisenhartM. (2001). Changing conceptions of culture and ethnographic methodology: Recent thematic shifts and their implications for research on teaching. In RichardsonV. (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed., pp. 209-225). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
29.
EnyedyN.MukhopadhyayS. (2007). They don’t show nothing I didn’t know: Emergent tensions between culturally relevant pedagogy and mathematics pedagogy. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16, 139-174.
30.
EricksonF. (1992). Transformation and school success: The policies and culture of educational achievement. In JacobE.JordanC. (Eds.), Minority education: Anthropological perspectives (pp. 27-51). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
31.
EsmondeI. (2009). Explanations in mathematics classrooms: A discourse analysis. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 2, 86-99.
32.
FormanE. A. (2003). A sociocultural approach to mathematics reform: Speaking, inscribing, and doing mathematics within communities of practice. In KilpatrickJ.MartinW. G.SchifterD. (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school mathematics (pp. 333-352). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
33.
FosterM. (1995). African American teachers and culturally relevant pedagogy. In BanksJ. A.BanksC. (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 570-581). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
34.
FrankeM. L.KazemiE.BatteyD. (2007). Mathematics teaching and classroom practice. In LesterF. (Ed.), Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 225-256). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
35.
FriedmanT. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
36.
GeeJ. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125.
37.
GeertzC. (1983). Local knowledge. New York, NY: Basic Books.
38.
GonzalezN. (2005). The hybridity of funds of knowledge. In GonzalezN.MollL.AmantiC. (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 29-46). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39.
GonzalezN.MollL.AmantiC. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
40.
GrossmanP.ComptonC.IgraD.RonfeldtM.ShahanE.WilliamsonP. W. (2009). Teaching practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teachers College Record, 111, 2055-2100.
41.
GrossmanP.McDonaldM. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in teaching and teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 184-205.
42.
GutierrezK. D.Baquedano-LopezP.TejedaC. (1999). Rethinking diversity: Hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 6, 286-303.
43.
GutierrezR. (1996). Practices, beliefs, and cultures of high school mathematics departments: Understanding their influence on student advancement. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28, 495-529.
44.
GutierrezR. (1999). Advancing urban Latina/o youth in mathematics: Lessons from an effective high school mathematics department. Urban Review, 31, 263-281.
45.
GutierrezR. (2000). Is the multiculturalization of mathematics doing us more harm than good? In MalalinghamR.McCarthyC. (Eds.), Multicultural curriculum: New directions for social theory, practice, and policy (pp. 119-219). New York, NY: Routledge.
46.
GutsteinE. (2006). Reading and writing the world with mathematics: Toward a pedagogy for social justice. New York, NY: Routledge.
47.
GutsteinE.LipmanP.HernandezP.de los ReyesR. (1997). Culturally relevant mathematics teaching in a Mexican American context. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 709-737.
48.
HeathS. B. (1983). Ways with words: Life and work in communities and classrooms. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
49.
HeathS. B. (1996). “Epilogue.” In Ways with words: Life and work in communities and classrooms (pp. 372-376). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
50.
HenningsenM.SteinM. K. (1997). Mathematical tasks and student cognition: Classroom-based factors that support and inhibit high-level mathematical thinking and reasoning. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 524-549.
51.
HillH.BallD. (2004). Learning mathematics for teaching: Results from California’s mathematics professional development institutes. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 35, 330-351.
52.
HillH.RowanB.BallD. (2005). Effects of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 24, 371-406.
53.
HollandD.LaveJ. (2001). History in person: Enduring struggles, contentious practice, intimate identities. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press.
54.
HornI. S. (2005). Learning of the job: A situated account of teacher learning in two high school mathematics departments. Cognition and Instruction, 23, 207-236.
55.
HornI. S. (2007). Fast kids, slow kids, lazy kids: Classification of students and conceptions of subject matter in math teachers’ conversations. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16, 37-79.
56.
JacksonK.CobbP. (2010, May). Refining a vision of ambitious mathematics instruction to address issues of equity. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
57.
JacksonK.ShahanE.GibbonsL.CobbP. (2012). Launching complex tasks. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 18, 24-29.
58.
JacksonK.WilsonJ. (2012). Supporting African American students’ learning of mathematics: A problem of practice. Urban Education, 47, 354-398.
59.
KazemiE.FrankeM.LampertM. (2009). Developing pedagogies in teacher education to support novice teachers’ ability to enact ambitious instruction. In HunterR.BicknellB.BurgessT. (Eds.), Crossing divides: Proceedings of the 32nd annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (Vol. 1, pp. 12-30). Palmerston North: MERGA.
60.
KazemiE.HubbardA. (2008). New directions for the design and study of professional development: Attending to the coevolution of teachers’ participation across contexts. Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 428-441.
61.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1995). Making mathematics meaningful in a multicultural context. In SecadaW. G.FennemaE.AdajianL. B. (Eds.), New directions for equity in mathematics education (pp. 126-145). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
62.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1998). It doesn’t add up: African American students’ 48 mathematics achievement. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 697-708.
63.
LaveJ.MurtaughM.de la RochaO. (1984). The dialectic of grocery shopping. In RogoffB.LaveJ. (Eds.), Everyday cognition: Development in social context (pp. 67-94). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
LeeC. (1993). Signifying as a scaffold for literary interpretation: The pedagogical implications of an African American discourse genre. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
66.
LeeC. (1995). Signifying as a scaffold for literary interpretation. Journal of Black Psychology, 21, 357-381.
67.
LeeC. (2003). Toward a framework for culturally responsive design in multimedia computer environments: Cultural modeling as a case. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 10, 42-61.
68.
LeithwoodK.LouisK. S.AndersonS.WahlstromK. (2004). How leadership influences student learning. New York, NY: Wallace Foundation.
69.
LipkaJ.HoganP.WebsterJ. P.YanezE.AdamsB.ClarkS.LacyD. (2005). Math in a cultural context: Two case studies of a successful culturally based math project. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36, 367-385.
70.
LipkaJ.YanezE.Andrew-IhrkeD.AdamS. (2009). A two-way process for developing culturally based math. In GreerB.MukhopadhyayS.PowellA. B.Barber-NelsonS. (Eds.), Culturally responsive mathematics education (pp. 257-280). New York, NY: Routledge.
71.
MartinD. B. (2000). Mathematics success and failure among African-American youth: The roles of sociohistorical context, community forces, school influence, and individual agency. New York, NY: Routledge.
72.
MartinD. B. (2007). Mathematics learning and participation in the African American context. In NasirN.CobbP. (Eds.), Improving access to mathematical ideas (pp. 146-158). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
73.
MasingilaJ. (1994). Mathematics practice in carpet-laying. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 25, 429-462.
74.
MilnerH. R. (2012). But what is urban education?Urban Education, 47(3), 556-561.
75.
MollL. (1997). The creation of mediating settings. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 4, 191-199.
76.
MoschkovichJ. (2007). Using two languages when learning mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(2), 121-144.
77.
MosesR. P.CobbC. E. (2001). Radical equations: Math literacy and civil rights. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
78.
NasirN. S. (1996). Statistics in practice: African American youth in the play of basketball (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of California, Los Angeles.
79.
NasirN. S. (2000). “Points ain’t everything”: Emergent goals and average and percent understandings in the play of basketball among African American students. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 31, 283-305.
80.
NasirN. S. (2002). Identity, goals, and learning: Mathematics in cultural practice. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4, 213-248.
81.
NasirN. S. (2007). Identity, goals, and learning: The case of basketball mathematics. In NasirN.CobbP. (Eds.), Improving access to mathematics ideas (pp. 132-145). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
82.
NasirN. S.HandV.TaylorE. V. (2008). Culture and mathematics in school: Boundaries between “cultural” and “domain” knowledge in the mathematics classroom and beyond. Review of Research in Education, 32, 187-240.
83.
NesporJ. (1997). Tangled up in school: Politics, space, bodies, and signs in the educational process. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
84.
NichollsJ. (1989). The competitive ethos and democratic education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
85.
OrtnerS. (2000). Fieldwork in the postcommunity. In LevinsonB. (Ed.), Schooling the symbolic animal: Social and cultural dimensions of education (pp. 358-368). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
86.
PhilipsS. U. (1972). Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm springs children in community and classroom. In CazdenC. B.JohnV. P.HymesD. (Eds.), Functions of language in the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
87.
SaxeG. B. (1988). The mathematics of child street vendors. Child Development, 59, 1415-1425.
88.
SaxeG. B.EsmondeI. (2005). Studying cognition in flux: A historical treatment of Fu in the shifting structure of Oksapmin mathematics. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 12, 171-225.
89.
ScribnerS. (1984). Studying working intelligence. In RogoffB.LaveJ. (Eds.), Everyday cognition: Its development in social context (pp. 9-40). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
90.
ScribnerS. (1997). Mind in action: A functional approach to thinking. In ColeM.EngestromY.VasquezO. (Eds.), Mind, culture, and activity: Seminal papers from the laboratory of comparative human cognition (pp. 354-368). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1982)
91.
SecadaW. (1995). Social and critical dimensions for equity in mathematics education. In SecadaW. G.FennemaE.AdajianL. B. (Eds.), New directions for equity in mathematics education (pp. 146-164). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
92.
SherinM. G.HanS. Y. (2004). Teacher learning in the context of video club. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 163-183.
93.
SteinM. K.EngleR.SmithM.HughesE. (2008). Orchestrating powerful mathematical discussions: Five practices for helping teachers move beyond show and tell. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 10, 313-340.
94.
TaylorE. V. (2009). Purchasing practice of low-income students: The relationship to mathematical development. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 18, 370-415.
95.
ThompsonA. G.ThompsonP. W.BoydB. A.CalculationalB. A. (1994). Calculational and conceptual orientations in teaching mathematics. In AicheleD. B.CoxfordA. F. (Eds.), Professional development for teachers of mathematics: 1994 yearbook. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
96.
VarenneH.McDermottR. (1999). Successful failure: The school America builds. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
97.
WarrenB.BallengerC.OgonowskiM.RoseberyA. S.Hudicourt BarnesJ. (2001). Rethinking diversity in learning science: The logic of everyday sense making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(5), 529-552.
98.
WengerE. (1998). Communities of practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
99.
WillisP. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
100.
YonD. (2000). Elusive culture: Schooling, race, and identity in global times. Albany: State University of New York Press.
