The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers' beliefs and experiences in learning about teaching mathematics for social justice during a one-semester mathematics methods course at a large university in the Southwest. The study examined their beliefs on three levels: a) their beliefs about issues of equity, diversity, and social justice in general; b) their beliefs about how issues of equity, diversity, and social justice relate to teaching (i.e., if and how the preservice teachers perceive themselves as critical educators); and c) their beliefs about teaching mathematics for social justice. This study also analyzed the preservice teachers' experiences as they learned about and then discussed lessons and projects that could be used for teaching mathematics for social justice. The purpose of analyzing their experiences was to document what the pre-service teachers identified as positive and negative influences on their learning to teach mathematics for social justice.

In this thesis, mathematics educators are conceptualized as individuals with multiple, simultaneous figured worlds that inform their decisions while planning. The study explores how two mathematics educators negotiated and orchestrated their figured worlds to plan two mathematics lessons for social justice. The results highlight how numerous the figured worlds each participant surfaced through background interviews. Some of the figured worlds were elicited by the interview questions (i.e., Race, Family, Social Justice Teaching) but other figured worlds organically surfaced through the interviews (i.e., Sexuality, Community, Activism, Critical Information Consumption). A discursive analysis of a selection of these figured worlds revealed conceptualizations that were unique and similar between the two participants' figured worlds. Only some of these figured worlds were orchestrated in the planning of two social justice lessons. First, the figured world of Mathematics Teaching was demonstrated to be in apparent tension with the figured world of Social Justice teaching but were orchestrated by the participants to be valued together through adaptation of the lesson to include both mathematical and social justice goals. Second, the figured worlds of Quantitative Reasoning and Social Justice Teaching were negotiated, with one participant valuing student reasoning with quantities over students reasoning with the injustice evident in the tasks. Third, personal figured worlds (Race, Gender, Church, etc.) limited the participants from fully anticipating the possible reactions of students during the lesson. The results of this study can inform teacher educator practice of the complexity of teacher identity work, particularly to engage in teaching math for social justice.

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<p> </p> <p>Issues of social justice continue to permeate all aspects of life in the United States. Acknowledging recent calls for racial justice, as well as efforts to restrict what is taught in mathematics classrooms, researchers and practitioners are increasingly exploring the promises of teaching mathematics for social justice in secondary mathematics classrooms. This dissertation contributes to research about how a social justice mathematics course can be utilized in teacher education programs to support prospective mathematics teachers’ (PMTs’) development of their mathematics identities, as well as how PMTs translate social justice mathematics theory into</p> <p>practice with their secondary mathematics students. This research complexifies the role of primarily white mathematics teachers and teacher educators working toward teaching</p> <p>mathematics for social justice by foregrounding some of the ways in which social justice mathematics curricula and instruction may continue to center whiteness. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation includes three studies focused on the design and delivery of a social justice mathematics course offered to undergraduate students, as well as the learning outcomes</p> <p>for 11 PMTs enrolled in the first iteration. As such, each study is formatted for submission to a research journal and contains its own questions, methods, findings, discussion, and conclusion. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The first and second studies detail the experiences of PMTs in a social justice mathematics course. In the first study, I explored how engaging in such a course contributed to PMTs’ mathematics identities. Findings in this case study suggest that sustained engagement with social justice mathematics can contribute to PMTs’ conceptions of mathematics and encourage them to address issues of social justice in their mathematics classrooms. Building on this, three of the PMTs enrolled in the course and I engaged in a critical participatory action research study to investigate their experiences working toward teaching mathematics for social justice in their secondary mathematics field placements. Prior to engaging their students with social justice mathematics tasks, the PMTs focused on developing relationships and trust with students and also maintained a commitment to engaging students with dominant mathematics. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Informed by a finding in the first study (i.e., PMTs continued to view mathematics as objective and neutral), in the third study, I investigated the prominence of whiteness in the development and facilitation of the course. Using action research and critical whiteness studies, I detail areas in which I perpetuated whiteness, as well as areas in which I began to make progress.</p>