Grace A. Chen’s research while affiliated with New York University and other places

The marginalizing effects of mathematics education, particularly for students who are also marginalized by racism, poverty, and other intersecting forms of oppression, are well-documented. In response, many educators and researchers claim that it is mathematics teachers’ ethical responsibility to adopt equitable instructional practices. In this chapter, I argue that equitable practices, which are often taken for granted in pursuit of more equitable mathematics education, exist in relation to what Lauren Berlant calls cruel optimism: where what we are drawn to paradoxically makes it harder to achieve our desires. I examine the cruelty of three common “equitable” practices through a lens of relational ethics and suggest that we, who are interested in justice, might actively choose cruelty.

What do ethical relations look like in the context of the many injustices that pervade mathematics education? In this paper, I argue, first, that violence is the relation that characterizes much of contemporary mathematics education and, second, that understanding ethical relations requires considering mathematics as an equal actor in creating possible relations rather than simply treating it as a context for human relations. I examine how literature in care theory, emancipatory pedagogies, and mathematics education have framed ethical relationality and suggest that the feminist new materialist conceptualization of response-ability offers several contributions for rethinking agency, justice, and praxis for mathematics teachers concerned with addressing mathematical violence.

How do teachers account for homework-related inequalities? Our longitudinal ethnographic study reveals that, despite awareness of structural inequalities in their students’ lives, elementary- and middle-school teachers’ practices centeredcthe myth of meritocracy. They treat struggles with math homework as products of students’ and (particularly in elementary grades) parents’ insufficient responsibility, effort, and motivation. These interpretations then justify homework practices that reinforce inequalities, including assigning homework that exceeds what students can complete independently and rewarding/punishing students based on homework. We discuss implications for debates about homework and the dangers of meritocracy myths and offer recommendations for more equitable alternatives.

Education researchers have long wrestled with the interplay of oppressive structures and individual agency in reproducing, sustaining, and contesting marginalization. In this article, we suggest that Weis and Fine’s construct of critical bifocality may assist researchers in understanding and addressing marginalization in mathematics education. We conduct a conceptual review of existing mathematics education literature that accounts for both structure and agency in theorizing marginalization. By reading this literature alongside Weis and Fine’s 2012 article, we develop four criteria for operationalizing critical bifocality in mathematics education research. The findings from this review highlight the interconnectedness of structures and individual lives, of the material and ideological elements of marginalization, of intersectionality and within-group heterogeneity, and of histories and institutions. Additionally, they offer theoretical and methodological recommendations for researchers studying marginalization in mathematics education.

Practices like ability grouping, tracking, and standardized testing operate as status-reinforcing processes-amplifying then naturalizing unequal student outcomes. Using a longitudinal, ethnographic study following students from elementary to middle school, we examine whether math homework can operate similarly. Because of inequalities in families' resources for supporting homework, higher-SES students' homework was more consistently complete and correct than lower-SES students' homework. Teachers acknowledged these unequal homework production contexts. Yet, official policies treated homework as an individual endeavor, leading teachers to interpret and respond to homework in status-reinforcing ways. Students with consistently correct and complete homework were seen as responsible, capable, and motivated and rewarded with praise and opportunities. Other students were seen as irresponsible, incapable, and unmotivated; they were punished and docked points. These practices were status-enhancing for higher-SES students and status-degrading for lower-SES students. We discuss implications for homework policies, parent involvement, and interpretations of inequalities in school. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In light of decades of research seeking to document and transform extensive injustices in mathematics education in the United States, we examine how different conceptualizations of which students are marginalized and by what processes they are marginalized in order to contribute to a more thorough, nuanced understanding of marginalization in mathematics education. To do so, we review literature theorizing marginalization across social identity categories and synthesize the disciplinary traditions they draw on and the mechanisms of marginalization they articulate. Findings from this review highlight the normality of marginalization in mathematics education, the material and ideological means of marginalization, and the interlacing of individual and structural sources of marginalization. As a result, we argue for critical bifocality in attending simultaneously to the processes of marginalization that occur in individual mathematics classrooms alongside the systemic structures that organize marginalization in society more broadly.