About This Study

To better understand the promise and challenges of encouraging more Black educators to choose mathematics teaching as a career, Examining the Trajectories of Black Mathematics Teachers will document the oral histories and experiences of Black mathematics teachers pre- and post-de jure school desegregation as a means of informing contemporary recruitment and retention policies and processes. Trajectories also examines the experiences of currently practicing K-12 Black teachers of mathematics regarding their beliefs about mathematics content, recruitment, retention, racialized experiences in education, and perceptions and beliefs about current pedagogical practices.

This research project integrates two strands of The EHR Core Grant funded by the National Science Foundation: STEM workforce development and broadening participation in STEM guided by three aims:

  1. To document the experiences of Black mathematics teachers pre- and post-de jure school desegregation as a means of informing contemporary issues in recruitment and retention of Black mathematics teachers;

  2. To examine the experiences of currently practicing Black secondary mathematics teachers related to beliefs about mathematics content, recruitment, retention, racialized experiences in education, and perceptions and beliefs about pedagogical practices to inform educational policy and provide implications for recruiting and maintaining a more diverse STEM teaching force; and

  3. To use information gleaned from the teachers’ experiences to inform recruitment and retention efforts in attracting and retaining Black secondary mathematics teachers and to build theoretical knowledge regarding the interplay of the cultural, social, affective, and content-related resources Black mathematics teachers bring to their practice.

 
Research design for the Trajectories project

Research design for the Trajectories project

The mixed method research design addresses the complexity of interrogating this broad issue. The research design includes oral history interviews with retired Black mathematics teachers.

To capture the experiences of current Black secondary mathematics teachers, the research team will adapt and administer large-scale surveys and conduct focus groups with subsets of these participants. The research questions that guide this work are as follows:

  1. What are the mathematical, racialized, and educational experiences of Black mathematics teachers who taught during the periods of de facto desegregation in the United States and those who are currently teachers?

  2. How do the experiences of former and currently practicing Black mathematics teachers contribute to theorizing about the role of Black mathematics teachers and the content, intellectual, cultural, and social resources they bring to their practice?

  3. How do the experiences of former and currently practicing Black teachers inform how schools, policy makers, and teacher preparation programs recruit and retain a diverse mathematics teaching force?