| Students from low socioeconomic status (SES) and English Language Learner (ELL) populations continue to perform poorly in mathematics, calling for a greater focus on equity (NCTM, 1989, 2000) and social justice. But teaching for equity and social justice is a complex lifelong process that requires not only content and pedagogical knowledge, but also effort and reflection (Darling-Hammond, 2002, p. 201). Moreover, there is ambiguity in meaning within the field of mathematics education around what equitable and social justice mathematics instruction looks like in the classroom (Cochran-Smith, 2009).;An invited classroom intervention provided me access to an experienced teacher whose pedagogy seemed to exemplify culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995) mathematics pedagogy. On further investigation, I found in her an "information-rich" (Patton, 1990, p. 169) vignette, useful for the field of mathematics education. Using case study interpretive ethnography, I built "the case of Ms. Lara".;I collected data in Liberty Elementary School's (pseudonym) culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse fifth grade mathematics classroom, where nearly 90% of students were low SES. The school's academic reports showed low levels of student achievement. I analyzed video-recorded classroom observations, student work samples, teacher and researcher field notes; and interviews with Ms. Lara (pseudonym) in my study.;Key findings from my study led me to develop a framework of teaching mathematics for equity and social justice, the "Clarity, Compassion, and Integrity (CCI) Triangular Model". Clarity includes a teacher's continuous informal and informative assessment of students and students developing critical thinking as a personal process. Compassion is a call to action with for teacher intentionally seeking to understand students' hopes, dreams and aspirations; and providing a safe environment for students to build their mathematical and social identities. Integrity places students and mathematics at the center with students as the locus of authority and decision-making in knowledge co-construction, and with the teacher facilitating a connected understanding of mathematics across content areas, using multiple representations, and making real-world connections.;Implications for the field of mathematics education are in building a theory and seeking clarity about what it means to teach mathematics for social justice. The CCI model is meaningful in its entirety, to identify "particular practices" (Boaler, 2000, p. 239) that enhance social justice objectives in mathematics education. The model provides a framework to investigate what it means to teach mathematics for proficiency, equity as well as social justice.;Implications for research and practice are in the context of teacher preparation: a) study provides a vision of what teaching for social justice looks like, making it accessible to teachers and teacher educators; b) study points to considering aspects of Montessori, special education, and educational philosophy traditions (in Ms. Lara's background) to be integrated in teacher preparation; c) study showed importance of teacher intentionality, but how it is related to changing practice needs to be studied; d) study points to role of teacher's experiential knowledge in decision-making, so experiences as a part of teacher preparation programs to equip them to teach for equity and social justice might be considered. |
