LATINA/O STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ABOUT
MATHEMATICS, LEARNING MATHEMATICS,
AND THEIR SENSE OF AGENCY
Rodrigo Gutiérrez, Tal Sutton,
Erin Turner, Maura Varley
University of Arizona
CEMELA is a Center for Learning and
Teaching supported by the National Science
Foundation, grant number ESI-0424983.
AIM OF THE STUDY
 To
explore the nature of Latino/a
students’ beliefs related to mathematics,
mathematical identity, and sense of
agency, through analysis of interview data
with math club participants.
• Part of a larger study focusing more
broadly on Latino/a students’
experiences and participation in afterschool mathematics clubs.
• Cross-site analysis with UIC planned for
this Spring- AERA symposium.
THEORETICAL TOOLS
 Learning
as Participation (Boaler & Greeno; Nasir)
 Positioning and being positioned, taking on roles
 Identity and Agency (Holland; Greeno & Gresalfi;
Pruyn; Sfard)
 Mathematical Identities; Identity as Learners;
Identity as Agents of Change
 Mathematical Struggle (Middleton & Spanias; Meyer
et al.)
 Willingness to persist with challenging tasks, linked
to mathematical identity
RELEVANT RESEARCH QUESTIONS
RESOURCES:
What linguistic, cultural, and social resources do students
use as they engage in learning mathematics?
STRUGGLE:
What factors support students’ willingness to struggle? To
what extent does students’ willingness to struggle with
challenging tasks change over time?
IDENTITY/
AGENCY:
What is the nature of students’ mathematical identity,
their agency as learners, and their sense of socio-political
agency?
What is the nature of students’ beliefs about the
discipline, about school math, and its relevance to their
lives and communities? How do these beliefs shift over
time?
What issues in the school and/or local community are
Latino/a youth concerned about? What is the nature of
their concern?
BELIEFS:
CONCERNS
about SCHOOL
AND
COMMUNITY:
RESEARCH CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS
 Elementary
and middle school after-school
Math Club (8 elementary and 25 middle school
participants)
 non-traditional, problem-solving
 community-based
 critical mathematics
 Interview Participants: 5th-8th grade; 11
female, 9 male
 Students attended majority-Latino/a schools in
Arizona
SOURCES OF DATA
•
•
•
2-3 individual interviews conducted with each
participant (Early Fall and Late Spring)
Total Interviews: 42 (20 participants)
Focus of Interviews:
– Language Use
– Beliefs about:
• Discipline of math
• Self as math learner
• Math learning
– Beliefs about self as agent of change
SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
IDENTITY/AGENCY:
What is the nature of
students’ mathematical
identity, their mathematical
learning, sense of sociopolitical agency?
- How would you describe yourself as a
math student? Are you good at math?
How do you know?
- What makes someone really good at
math?
- Given an issue that student wants to
change, could you do something about
this, could you impact change?
BELIEFS:
- When you hear the word math what
What is the nature of
comes to mind? How would you explain
students’ beliefs about the
to a younger child what math is?
discipline, about school math,
and its relevance to their lives - Do you think math is important? What is
math important for?
and communities? How do
these beliefs shift over time? - What is something you want to change –
could math help you in any way?
DATA ANALYSIS
 Coding:
Group process of review of transcripts, generating
codes based on theoretical constructs and the
data, defining and refining codes.
 Hyperresearch used for organization, coding and
analysis
 Reliability Coding
 Subset of interview transcripts coded by two
researchers, discrepancies documented and
resolved, and code list refined.
 Analysis within and across two sets of data
(Elementary and Middle School)

INITIAL FINDINGS: WHAT IS MATH?
 Overwhelmingly
numbers and operations
 Ex: “I think of numbers, like 2 times 20 or 2 times
100…. When I think of math I just see a whole bunch
of numbers and problems go around me and I get dizzy
and then I fall because it’s so much work.”
Maria, 5th grade
 Variety of real world applications (many consumerrelated)
 Ex: “I think of math as a way that helps your life, like in
the store if you want to buy something and if you want
to buy two of them then you got to know your math.”
Alegria, 5th grade
INITIAL FINDINGS: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “GOOD AT
MATH”
•
•
•
Students see being good at math as
measured by external evaluation (grades and
test scores). Often, these tests measure one’s
calculation speed and/or memorization skills.
“Good math students” engage in behaviors
such as doing homework, practicing, paying
attention, showing up on time for class.
VERY isolated mention of understanding or
the ability to solve challenging problems as
indicators of being “good at math.”
INITIAL FINDINGS: SELF AS MATH LEARNER
 Disconnect
between how students see themselves as
mathematical learners and how they frame being
“good at math.” Students see themselves as problem
solvers, and describe their problem-solving strategies,
while being good at math is primarily attributed to
external measures and rote learning-related
behaviors.
 Ex: Problem solver vs. test scores
 Students
see themselves as having the capacity to be
good at math (i.e., get a better grade). Improving in
math is linked to effort/practice and “getting it”.
Success in math is not static.
INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCY
•
Dance between Structure and Agency (Pickering)
 Students aware that power structures can impede their
individual/collective agency (sometimes this goes as far as
seeing change as impossible), and structures can be
leveraged to support their agency (i.e., gaining the support
of people in power).
 Power as embodied/operationalized in different ways
(people in power, time, money, resources, power of adults
over children, resistance to change, etc.).
 Collective action (particularly collective action on the part
of youth) is critical to effecting change (especially given the
constraints to agency).
INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCY
 Example:

“We’re gonna show [the survey results] to the
parents and then show it to the principals
and teachers so they can help us make
change to the school safety.”
Juliana, 7th grade
INITIAL FINDINGS: BELIEFS ABOUT AGENCY
 Feel
they can make change if they “have extra
people” or “if the whole community comes
together and talks about it.”
Maggie and Veronica, 5th graders
 “We’re
little kids and we want the school to
not close and when we showed our video I
think the board members really got an idea of
how we felt.”
Veronica, 5th grade
IMPLICATIONS
 Have
explicit conversations with students about
what it means to be good at math, value multiple
kinds of mathematical “smartness”* in order to
expand notions of what it means to be good at
math beyond grades and test scores.
*Dr. Marcy Wood’s term
o
Classroom structures should support students’
agentive beliefs about doing math (involves
problem-solving and effort).
IMPLICATIONS
A
aBroadened notion of mathematics as
critical and community-based could lead to
stronger sense of critical mathematical agency.
 Students’
experiences with critical
mathematics has the potential to broaden
their notion of what it means to do math and
their sense of agency.