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Mathematics Learning and Diverse Students
Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Niral Shah, Jose Gutierrez, Kim Seashore, Nicole Louie, & Evra Baldinger
UC Berkeley
Abstract
This literature review synthesizes the research on issues of mathematics teaching, learning, and
achievement for students from marginalized groups, including Black students, Latina/o students,
English language learners, and poor students. In Part 1, we outline national trends in
mathematics achievement and learning for students in these groups. In Part 2, we describe what
we know about the extent to which students in these groups are provided access to high-quality
mathematics instruction and we detail some of the challenges these students face. In Part 3, we
summarize what existing research tells us about effective instruction for equity in mathematics,
and the necessary conditions at the district, school, and department levels to support such
instruction. We also consider the implications for schools; what can schools do to better support
equity in mathematics learning outcomes? Throughout, we will consider the case of one school
that developed an equity pedagogy in mathematics, Railside High School, as an example of
successful equity pedagogy in mathematics, and as a cautionary illustration of the kinds of
institutional and district support required to sustain such pedagogy.
The goal of creating equitable
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outcomes in mathematics education has been a part of the
national agenda since at least the early 1980s, when the report A Nation at Risk cautioned that
America’s economic future depended on the mathematical and scientific literacy of all of its
citizens (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). However, three decades later,
substantial disparities both in resources and in achievement persist, organized along troublingly
clear lines of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES).
This paper reports on issues of mathematics teaching, learning, and achievement related
to students from groups historically marginalized, such as low-SES students, racial/ethnic
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Using the word equity, we adopt Rochelle Gutiérrez’s (2002) definition, which emphasizes “the goal of being
unable to predict student patterns (e.g., achievement, participation, the ability to critically analyze data or society)
based solely on characteristics such as race, class, ethnicity, sex, beliefs and creeds, and proficiency in the dominant
language” (p. 153).
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minorities, and English learners.
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The paper proceeds in four parts. First, we examine national
achievement data that reveal disparities in test performance and course-taking patterns. Next, we
go beyond the quantitative trends to consider disparities in students’ access to opportunities to
learn (DiME, 2007) that contribute to persistent inequities. Third, we synthesize what is known
about effective mathematics teaching and learning for students from marginalized groups.
Finally, we consider implications for institutional policy. As we do so, we use the case of
Railside High School as an example of a racially, socioeconomically, and linguistically diverse
high school that created an equity pedagogy in mathematics but then struggled to maintain that
pedagogy in the face of numerous external pressures coming out of a complex fiscal and policy
context. We will begin with a brief profile of Railside’s mathematics department.
Railside High School Mathematics
In many ways, Railside is a typical, large, urban, comprehensive high school. It enrolls
approximately 1500 students, with a student body that is 92% non-White (54% Latina/o,
21% Black, and 17% Asian and Pacific Islander). Additionally, 45% of the students at Railside
are English language learners, and 52% qualify for free or reduced lunch. Railside serves
students from exactly those populations about which we are most concerned in this paper.
In the early 1980s, there was nothing exemplary about mathematics instruction at Railside.
In fact, in 1986 students told the regional accreditation commission that they “could not learn
math” at Railside (Lieberman, 1997, p. 40). Prompted in no small part by this commission’s
report, the school’s mathematics department came together to figure out how to better support
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Historically, women have also comprised a group marginalized in mathematics. And while women remain
underrepresented in STEM careers (Hyde, et al., 2008), gender gaps in K-12 mathematics course-taking and
undergraduate mathematics majors have generally closed (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics,
2011). Thus, given our space constraints, gender equity is not the focus of this paper.
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students, particularly Black and Latina/o students, with whom they had not had much success.
The teachers began meeting regularly to develop curriculum and instructional practices that
would both maintain a high level of mathematical rigor and be widely accessible to students with
a variety of strengths. They enlisted the support of university partners as consultants. They also
attended carefully to their hiring practices, with the department playing a central role in hiring
new math teachers who were equity-minded. Over time, these efforts produced significant
results. Boaler and her colleagues (Boaler, 2008; Boaler & Staples, 2008) compared mathematics
teaching and learning at Railside and two other high schools, each of which had fewer poor and
minority students, and found that more Railside students were enrolled in advanced mathematics
courses (41% were in Calculus or Pre-Calculus, compared to 27% at the other schools). Railside
students also had slightly higher scores on the California standards test for algebra (49% of
students scored “basic” or better, compared to 41% at the other schools). Additionally,
achievement was more equitable at Railside, where there were no achievement gaps by senior
year between White, Black, and Latina/o students (though Asian students continued to have
significantly higher achievement than all other groups), while gaps between White and Asian
students versus Black and Latina/o students persisted at the other schools. We will say more
about the pedagogy and practices at Railside that produced these outcomes in later sections, but
first we will examine equity outcomes in mathematics nationally; the national trends provide
striking contrast to the success at Railside.
PART 1: Trends in achievement
In order to establish the seriousness of inequities in mathematics education, in this section
we discuss disparities in national standardized test scores and mathematics course-taking
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