Teaching logic for social justice: Connecting advanced mathematics and logic to an abolitionist perspective

Megumi Asada

Mathematics and mathematics education are implicated in broader societal inequities. These inequities can manifest in racialized and gendered classroom experiences and are perpetuated by the very practices students are encouraged to employ. While some scholarship in the K-12 context describes possibilities for the use of mathematics toward socially just ends, this area has been limited to statistics and computation, leaving proof unexplored despite its critical role within K-16 mathematics. This study aims to develop, and test the viability of, a learning trajectory for how students can use competencies from proof-based mathematics to support their sensemaking about prisons and abolition. The study consists of two cycles of constructivist teaching experiments with pairs of undergraduates, in which they practice identifying and relaxing assumptions in a geometric context and apply these practices to understanding prisons and abolition. Through design and enactment, I will develop an instructional theory that describes possibilities and limitations for bringing sociopolitical topics into logic and proof.

About Megumi Asada

Megumi Asada is a PhD candidate at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. They received a B.A. in Mathematics from Williams College and an MPhil in Criminology from the University of Cambridge. Their research interests include abolitionist and emancipatory possibilities in advanced undergraduate mathematics and opportunities to tie advanced mathematics to the development of students' political consciousness. The inspiration for their work stems from firsthand experiences, both from teaching in high school classrooms and when conducting mathematics research, in which mathematics was construed as apolitical and unconcerned with broader societal injustices. Their work seeks to challenge these assumptions and explore how logic and proof can be used to make sense of and question the real inequities people experience. They enjoy collaborating with scholar-educators across disciplines, having previously co-developed a cross-disciplinary abolitionist curriculum through the Institute for Anti-Racist Education. Before starting their doctoral studies, they worked as a full-time tutor and Americorps teaching assistant in the Bronx. In their free time, they enjoy journaling, bouldering, and weightlifting.