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Presenting RuMEDs

RuMEDs summarize mathematics education research—usually a single study—in two pages. We intend these summaries to invite a careful reading of the original work, not to replace such a reading. With RuMEDs as a guide, even lay readers will benefit from consulting the original full-length studies. Research is difficult work, and easy summaries always, to varying degrees, misrepresent important features of the original works. Inaccuracies in these summaries claimed by readers will be addressed.

RuMed No. 1

Bickel, Robert & Howley, Caitlin (2003, March). Elementary math

achievement for rural development: Effects of contextual factors intrinsic to the modern world. Published as an ACCLAIM Working Paper. Available:

http://kant.citl.ohiou.edu/acclaim/rc/rc_sub/pub/3_wp/Bickel115.pdf

Robert Bickel and Caitlin Howley argue that efforts to promote math achievement in order to improve rural communities typically focus on curricular and instructional innovations, ignoring the influence of context and the impact of national and world economic and social change. The authors report on an examination of math achievement for K-3 students in 12 elementary schools – rural and non-rural – that found widely ignored social factors outside the classroom limited math achievement growth.

The authors observe many ways in which context can influence achievement. They note that social class today wields increasing clout in deciding who rises to the top in education, occupation, and income. Investing personally in education matters less in

how far one can climb in the workplace and in society. Family resources face strain; one measure is that 70 percent of children, age 5 or younger, are in day care, much of it unregulated, so that both parents (or single parents with primary custody) can work. These trends are products of a churning economy, one in which, among other things, the mercurial investment decisions of distant corporations have cut families, neighborhoods, and communities off from control over their destinies.

Bickel and Howley conducted a small case study in Appalachian West Virginia to determine if rural elementary schools were as effective as non-rural ones in promoting math achievement. Their inquiry considered several factors of context—rural/non-rural location, neighborhood quality, and measures of social class and household strain (the latter in the form of unregulated day care)—and asked how each might influence math achievement growth. Six rural and six non-rural elementary schools were randomly selected. Standardized test scores were compared and analyzed against a series of independent variables: maturation from kindergarten through the third grade; rural vs. non-rural location; neighborhood quality; school size; social class; day care participation; and Head Start participation.

The older the students, the higher their socioeconomic status, and the better their neighborhood, the better was their achievement. Private daycare—assumed to reflect greater family strain, and used as a proxy to measure such strain—pulled down

achievement scores. Students in schools where more students had taken part in Head Start showed higher achievement for their age than others. Finally, rural locale did not affect achievement.

While the study was limited to two West Virginia counties, Bickel and Howley observe that the social factors that limited math achievement in those communities exist elsewhere. Policy makers promote math achievement in rural communities in order to help equip them and their residents to work and survive in the modern world. Yet the authors argue that the nature of this modern world works against these same rural communities; efforts to reform math education may be outmatched by the reality of the world that those reform policies are meant to accommodate. Education and its payoffs understood in context, and the context, Bickel and Howley conclude, is becoming global—and increasingly hostile to both rural and non-rural people.

RuMed No. 2

Summary by Erik Gunn, ACCLAIM

Gutstein, E. (2003). Teaching and learning mathematics for social justice in an urban, Latino school.

Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (34) 1, pp. 37-73.

The author, a faculty member of the College of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, spent two years teaching mathematics to honors students in an urban, Latino classroom, following them from 7th through 8th grades. While this article reports an experimental approach to education in an urban, Latino setting, Eric Gutstein’s account offers broader insights of interest to anyone considering the implications of context on mathematics teaching and learning.

Gutstein sought to present mathematics lessons aligned with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) and structured explicitly around social justice issues. Using the textbook and curriculum Mathematics in Context (National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education & Freudenthal Institute, 1997-1998), he added over the two years 17 “real-world projects” designed to illuminate selected social justice issues while helping students develop and practice specific mathematical skills.

Gutstein based his teaching approach on the work of Paulo Freire, who sees education as an interplay between two tasks: learning academic skills and learning how to interpret the world. Each feeds the other: the desire to interpret and understand helps inspire the student to build academic skills, and the building of academic skills equips the

student to better interpret and understand. The two together, in turn, may motivate and equip students to “to remedy unjust situations” (Gutstein, 2003, p. 40).

Gutstein says that “a pedagogy for social justice has three main goals: helping students develop sociopolitical consciousness, a sense of agency, and positive social and cultural identities” (p. 40). His mathematics objectives were to have students “use mathematics to understand—and potentially act on—their sociopolitical context” (p.44); to help students build mathematical power, as envisioned by 2000 Principles and

Standards; and, using the real-world projects, to help students change their attitudes toward mathematics and develop greater motivation to study it.

Among their real-world projects, Gutstein’s students analyzed housing prices and demographics of residential communities to examine questions about racism in real estate practices. They compared the distribution of wealth by continents—an exercise that one student took to a particularly sophisticated level when she realized wealth may be

distributed unevenly even within a so-called wealthy continent. They also considered the extent to which variations in SAT and ACT scores by race, gender, and social class might reflect discrimination. In the process, they learned about such mathematical concepts as proportionality and area measurement, employing a variety of mathematical tools.

Gutstein concludes that, over the two years he taught, his students learned both the complexity of the questions with which they grappled and that “mathematics played a role in trying to sort out difficult, real-world questions” (p. 52). He notes that all students passed 8th grade standardized tests required for promotion. He also observes with

satisfaction that most students demonstrated one particular objective of the Standards: inventing alternative solutions to particular problems (pp. 55-59). Finally, he reports that

most appeared to have changed how they viewed mathematics, seeing it not as a

mysterious, inaccessible and irrelevant subject, but as a powerful tool that, in the words of one, “makes things more clear” (p. 61).

SUGGESTED RESOURCES

Math in a Cultural Context: Lessons learned from Yup’ik Eskimo Elders Going to Egg Island: Adventures in Grouping and Place Values

Math in a Cultural Context: Lessons learned from Yup’ik Eskimo Elders By Jerry Lipka, Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Calgary AB, 2003

This is a supplemental math curriculum based on the traditional wisdom and practices of the Yup’ik Eskimo people of southwest Alaska. This curriculum meets the content and process standards of the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Based on a ten-year collaboration between educators, teachers, and Yup’ ik Eskimo elders and teachers to connect cultural knowledge to school mathematics. www.temerondetselig.com

Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing by Robert E. Brooke, Teachers College Press, May 2003

Featuring lively essays from rural elementary and secondary school teachers, this book describes the theory and practice of place-conscious education- using one’s local place to build real, lasting connections to learning. The teachers describe the development and implementation of rich classroom writing programs that link learners with their rural communities and can serve as models for both public engagement and pedagogy. Rural Voices can be purchased by calling 1-800-575-6566 or