Towards Emancipatory Anti-Racist Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Sandra Zuniga Ruiz

In recent decades, the field of mathematics education has made immense strides in centering justice in our K-12 math classrooms. These efforts propel us to shift towards more liberatory identity-centered frameworks, emancipatory anti-racist mathematics education. I argue this shift requires the co-creation of spaces of freedom foregrounding the imaginary towards more just possibilities of elementary mathematics education for teachers and children. In this project, I aim to construct an understanding of what emancipatory anti-racist mathematics teaching and learning is as understood and conceptualized by a group of elementary Latine educators. This two-year project will begin with the development of a proactive counterspace for in-service teachers to grapple with developing an emancipatory anti-racist perspective of mathematics teaching and learning. In the second year, the in-service teachers will be followed in the classroom to examine and understand the transformative practices grounded on the embodiment of the emancipatory antiracist perspective. This second phase would complement the teachers? perspective by now including the researcher?s and students? perspective. Grounded on Critical Race Theory and LatCrit theory this study will center the voices and experiences of Latine educators as they grapple with becoming (an ongoing process) emancipatory anti-racist mathematics educators. This study will contribute to the ongoing efforts of retaining teachers of color through community, support bridging the gap in teacher education between theory and practice and challenge the status quo by cultivating more humanizing and dignity affirming math classrooms.

About Sandra Zuniga Ruiz

Sandra Zuñiga Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of K-12 Emancipatory Education in the Teacher Education Department at San José State University. She is a Mexicana daughter-sister-motherwife, scholar, maestra who grew up in an immigrant agricultural community in California. Her love for learning and education emerged through the teachings of her mother who taught her to see and imagine a world in which people could thrive and live dignified lives. Her work is grounded in a commitment to justice that is about creating mejores futuros for young people, honoring the hopes and dreams of immigrants who come to the US for a better life. Drawing from her experiences, Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives and critical approaches to learning, Sandra’s research work aims to understand how teachers of color develop understandings about race and justice with and of mathematics. Such work is motivated with the understanding that teachers of color need communities of care and sustenance to continue in their ongoing journey of becoming justice-oriented mathematics teachers in a constraining schooling system. She takes a community engaged, relational, and humanizing approach to how she navigates academia and research. Sandra holds a Ph.D. in education from UC Berkeley, an M.A. in Mathematics from San Francisco State University and a B.S. in Mathematics from California State University, Monterey Bay.