Na'ilah Suad Nasir

Identity, Goals, and Learning: Mathematics in Cultural Practice

In this article, I explore and elaborate the relation between goals, identities, and learning and argue for their utility as a model by which to understand the nature of learning in general and to better understand the way in which race, culture, and learning become intertwined for minority students in American schools. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives on learning and development, including Wenger (1998) and Saxe (1999), I describe findings from 2 studies of learning among African American students outside of school, in the cultural practices of dominoes and basketball. This research shows that indeed, as players come to learn these practices, they both shift in regard to the goals they seek to accomplish within the practice and change as they come to define themselves vis-à-vis the practice. The implications for understanding the relation between race, culture, and learning are discussed.

Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning

This article explores the potential uses and extensions of sociocultural theoretical perspectives for integrating and further developing research on race, culture, and learning. Two bodies of literature are discussed and synthesized: (1) sociocultural theory and (2) studies on race, culture, and learning. The article proposes how a sociocultural lens might provide insight and suggests new lines of research on issues of race, culture, and learning. The authors argue for the extension of each of four lines of research in the sociocultural tradition: a concern with multiple levels of analysis, cultural practices as a unit of analysis, tools and artifacts as mediating action, and learning as shifts in social relations. In doing so, the authors raise critical questions for the field of education to consider.

Ethnic and Academic Identities: A Cultural Practice Perspective on Emerging Tensions and Their Management in the Lives of Minority Students:

Youth from minority groups often manage a tension between ethnic and academic identities as they are positioned and position themselves in relation to cultural practices in school and out. We argue that a framework involving three strands of analysis is necessary to understand these emerging tensions and their management in the lives of minority youth. The strands include analyses of shifts in (a) positioning that take form in face-to-face interactions, (b) positioning over developmental time, and (c) the cultural capital associated with practices themselves over the social histories of communities. We point to the importance of multimethod approaches to pursue such analyses.

Culture and Mathematics in School: Boundaries Between “Cultural” and “Domain” Knowledge in the Mathematics Classroom and Beyond

principles and procedures in mathematics. The research on the implementation of social justice tasks in the mathematics classroom has also prompted questions about the difficulty of balancing discussions of complex social issues with the mathematics. For example, Bartell (2006) reports that teachers in her professional development course on social justice in mathematics found it challenging to move flexibly between the mathematics content and conversations about social injustice. Gutstein (2006) also admits that in his class, he had to occasionally forgo opportunities to pursue mathematical investigations to deepen the conversations about social issues. Because students often hold strong perspectives about social injustice and these can trigger emotional responses, it is clearly important for teachers to be able to adeptly and sensitively guide students back to the mathematics at hand. We wonder, then, if teachers are being prepared and have bargained for doing this multifaceted work. Also, can social justice activities stemming from students’ social realities sufficiently drive students’ development of sophisticated mathematics knowing across an extended period of time? Or should they mainly serve as supplemental materials to the existing mathematics curriculum, used to convince students that learning mathematics is relevant and even critical to improving their lives and the lives of others? A second challenge is in thinking about how one might apply these approaches in racially or ethnically heterogeneous classrooms. This is an especially salient issue for Funds of Knowledge and the Algebra Project, as to some degree, these approaches assume a degree of coherence within the communities that are being served. How might these approaches be adapted in classrooms where students are from multiple communities? What might it mean to draw on students’ experiences in such multicultural classrooms? This may be less of an issue with social justice approaches, but it still leaves more to be negotiated with and between students in classrooms where there is a wide range of race, class, or socioeconomic groups represented. How are teachers to deal with kids from communities that do not share a social justice perspective or see social justice in terms of their own philanthropy? Would such students (not from working-class families) buy into the basic premises of this approach? What additional support might they need to do so? Another critical issue with social justice approaches is that the time spent on social justice issues is potentially time not spent on math. What about the middle-class and upper-class parents who are unwilling to sacrifice time for “basic math” and relegate these approaches as appropriate only for those from nondominant groups? Similarly, in considering heterogeneity and culturally relevant pedagogy, it may be more difficult in heterogeneous classrooms and communities to have a sense of the community that students come from; there may be greater differences in achievement and histories with school among the students as well as variety in issues of identity that may need to be attended to. A third challenge involves the constraints imposed by the racial and gender makeup of the teaching force in this country and the structure of the profession. 222 Review of Research in Education, 32 The vast majority of teachers in the United States are White, middle-class women (Howard, 1999; Nieto, 2004). This is potentially a population of teachers for whom the approaches we describe may be particularly difficult, as they likely have the most to learn about their students’ communities. Although mathematics teachers are often marginalized within the broader mathematics community, they may not share the same level of marginalization with their nondominant students. Furthermore, teaching is a profession that is largely underpaid and overworked (Darling-Hammond, 1997). Most teachers, given the structure of the school day and demands on their time, have little time to conduct the kind of in-depth investigations of their students and their communities these approaches suggest. Even more important, in the broader context of increased reliance on standardized testing with high stakes for teachers and schools, these approaches that require more of teachers may be unrealistic. Any approach that argues for particular teaching strategies must take into account these very real constraints. However, despite these challenges, we see great promise in the work of the aforementioned approaches, and we offer these critiques as a way to continue to make progress on ways to support increased equity in math classrooms. It is important to note that these approaches highlight the critical role of teachers in reproducing patterns of inequity. In the next section, we focus on the implications our review may have for the knowledge teachers need to have to best support equity and begin to “blur the lines” between cultural and domain knowledge and work simultaneously at all three levels of our model. Because of space, we do not undertake a full review of the vast literature on teacher professional development that includes a cultural or equity lens (see Sowder, 2007; Wilson & Berne, 1999). Rather, we reflect on the implications for teacher training of the research we have reviewed in this chapter, drawing on some of the relevant work in teacher professional development. Toward this end, we briefly consider two questions. What knowledge do teachers need to know, and what professional development models might prove productive possibilities for sharing that knowledge with teachers? Implications for Teacher Knowledge The work of teachers has grown considerably more complex in the past 10 years (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Lampert & Ball, 1998; Putnam & Borko, 2000). Standards-based instructional practices require that teachers develop a specialized form of mathematics knowledge for teaching (MKT; Ball, 2005; Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004; Hill, Sleep, Lewis, & Ball, 2007) that reflects a particular blend of connected domain understanding with techniques and strategies to facilitate productive classroom interactions. Although the details of MKT are currently being worked out, the domain understanding required for eliciting, evaluating, and building (Carpenter, Fennema & Franke, 1996; Lampert, 1990, 2001; Schifter, 2001) on students’ mathematical ideas reflects a facility with and deep understanding of mathematical concepts and procedures across the terrain of K–12 mathematics (Greeno, 1991; Ma, 1999; NCTM, 1991, 2000). Teachers need to have Nasir et al.: Culture and Mathematics in School 223 the opportunity to develop mathematics knowing in practice through ongoing reflection in the classroom and with their peers through the use of records of practice, video, and other learning materials (Kazemi & Franke, 2004; Lampert & Ball, 1998). As Rochelle Gutiérrez (2002b) argues, however, knowledge of dominant mathematics must also be balanced with knowledge of how to enable students to critique the role of mathematics in society and to “contribute toward a positive relationship between mathematics, people, and society in ways that erase inequities on this planet” (p. 172). Delineating a set of teaching practices that encompasses both dominant and critical perspectives on mathematics is complicated by the fact that some classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse while others slip into hypersegregation (Orfield, Frankenberg, & Lee, 2003). Students themselves are also quite complex, as they negotiate hybrid practices, identities, and time scales through new global technologies that transcend traditional racial, social, and linguistic boundaries (Barab, Hay, Barnett, & Squire, 2001; Delpit, 2002; Gergen, 1991; Moje, Ciechanowski, Ellis, Carrillo, & Collazo, 2004). Thus, as we noted, in this chapter we do not presume to be able to comprehensively outline the knowledge teachers need to teach mathematics effectively and fairly. Instead, we juxtapose recent theoretical shifts that blur the boundaries between mathematics and cultural knowledge, with the implications of the various programs we reviewed above to propose ideas about effective mathematics teaching in classrooms with diverse populations of students. First, the Funds of Knowledge approach would suggest that an important aspect of teacher preparation would support teachers in viewing their students as whole people with rich social and intellectual lives outside of the classroom. Activities for prospective teachers might include spending time with students and families outside of school (Civil, 2002; Foote, 2006) and bringing families into schools to better understand students’ interests and skills outside of the classroom and those that exist as funds of knowledge in their communities. Additionally, professional development activities might include a study of modules developed with students’ and families’ funds of knowledge at the center and might offer models for alternative ways to incorporate family and community members into classroom activities. An important aspect of this work would be to support prospective or current teachers in understanding the value (both for students’ learning and for social justice) of shifting the traditional power relations between families and schools and of opening communication channels. Similarly, the activities of the Algebra Project would also suggest that supporting teachers in understanding the importance of and offering suggestions for how to better get to know the young people they are teaching is a critical focus for teacher preparation. The Algebra Project might also share an orientation for teachers that views math teaching as political activity and sees subverting current patterns of unequal access to higher mathematics as an immediate concern. Moses and Cobb (2001) argue that students need to be taught to

What Does It Mean to Be African American? Constructions of Race and Academic Identity in an Urban Public High School

In this article, the authors explore variation in the meanings of racial identity for African American students in a predominantly African American urban high school. They view racial identity as both related to membership in a racial group and as fluid and reconstructed in the local school setting. They draw on both survey data and observational data to examine the nature of racial identity meanings for African American students, their relation to academic engagement and achievement, and how they were fostered by the school context. Findings show that students embraced (and were offered differential access to) different meanings of African American racial identity and that these meanings were differentially related to achievement and engagement.

Individual Cognitive Structuring and the Sociocultural Context: Strategy Shifts in the Game of Dominoes

In this article, I explore the relation between the sociocultural and individual cognitive structuring as elementary school students, high school students, and adults play the strategic game of dominoes. I present data from a study in which players at each level were observed and video-recorded during domino tournament play. Findings reveal the cognitive and mathematical skills players developed as well as how those skills were fundamentally integrated with shifts in the activity structures of the game as players got older. Implications for understanding cognition and context and for teaching and learning are discussed.

The Cultural Construction of Moral and Civic Identities

In this article, we explore the intertwining of moral identity and the social and cultural context. First, we review existing research on moral identity that has considered the role of social others and the cultural environment. Then we pose questions to further research in this area and offer a 3-level framework with which to understand how the cultural world influences moral identity development. Central to this framework is an analysis of the cultural practices within which moral identities develop, as well as the institutional contexts that support these practices and the social interactions that comprise them. Finally, we illustrate the components of framework using examples of data from 2 studies-1 focused on how an inner city Muslim school worked to foster the moral identities of students and the other on the development of civic identities among urban teens in a community action program.

Creating Identity-Safe Spaces on College Campuses for Muslim Students

(2006). Creating Identity-Safe Spaces on College Campuses for Muslim Students. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning: Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 22-27.

Racial Storylines and Implications for Learning

In this article, we theorize the relation between race and schooling and consider the implications for learning. While the body of research on culture and learning has come to define learning as an inherently cultural and social process, scholars have few theoretical tools to help us think about the role of race and racism in relation to students’ access to identities as learners and to learning. We draw on both theoretical and empirical literature to make three core arguments: (a) racial ‘storylines’ or narratives are prevalent in our society and have powerful implications for learners, particularly for youth from marginalized communities; (b) these racial storylines are a critical aspect of life in schools, which serve the purpose of racially and academically socializing students; and (c) as these storylines are invoked in school settings, certain identities are made available, imposed, or closed down. Such identities have important implications for students’ opportunities to learn and their engagement in learning settings. As we conclude, we consider the potential of alternative spaces, which can serve to counter dominant narratives about who is capable of learning and how learning takes place, and open new spaces for identity and learning.

Diversity, Equity, and Mathematical Learning

The articles developed for this special issue of Mathematical Thinking and Learning grew out of a series of two meetings held at Vanderbilt University in November 1999 and at Northwestern University in September 2000. At both meetings, researchers from inside and outside mathematics education came together to share their perspectives on how issues of diversity and equity play out in the mathematics classroom. This focus was motivated in part by findings that indicate persistent inequities in students’ mathematics education in a number of countries. In the United States, for example, recent analyses of school achievement, course-taking patterns, and standardized-test data have revealed prevalent patterns of social inequity. The marginal performance in mathematics of minority students, language-minority students, poor students, and to some extent, girls has led several American scholars to raise concerns about the opportunities for members of these groups to compete in an increasingly technological world (Oakes, 1990). These achievement patterns are, however, not a recent phenomenon; differences in mathematics achievement have remained relatively stable in the 20 years since inequitable achievement patterns first became the focus of public debate in the United States (cf. Lockheed, Thorpe, Brooks-Gunn, Casserly, & McAloon, MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND LEARNING, 4(2&3), 91–102 Copyright