Plenary Session: Attending to diversity and equity in the recruitment and preparation of K-12 teachers of mathematics
Presenters
March 28, 2014
Keywords:
- mathematical policy
MSC:
- 97C70
- 97B20
- 97-xx
Abstract
The school-age population is approaching a composition of 50% ethnic and racial minorities, with an increasingly large proportion of multilingual students and students whose families speak languages other than English. Teacher preparation is often not well-aligned with this. For example, the composition of the teacher workforce is only about 15% teachers of color. Universities vary in how well they attend to recruitment and support of more diversity among teacher candidates, with many not doing well at all. Moreover, often little attention is devoted to preparing teachers to work effectively with children and youth in ways that are attentive to their experience, language, and culture. What we do in our courses can contribute to these important goals (or work against them). This session will address how these very real social justice demands figure in the overall preparation for teaching mathematics, and the ways that they could be better addressed in recruitment, as well as in the curriculum, pedagogy, climate, and culture of our programs.