Teaching mathematics for social justice beliefs scale: psychometrics and practices in teacher education

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of the Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice beliefs (TMfSJ-B) scale and its psychometric properties. Preservice elementary education teachers enrolled in teacher education programmes at seven universities completed multiple surveys designed to understand the evolution of attitudes and beliefs about teaching mathematics. To our knowledge, the TMfSJ-B scale is the only survey specifically designed to measure pre- and in-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics for social justice. Confirmatory factor analyses (n = 655) provided here indicate that the TMfSJ-B scale is a valid and reliable assessment of beliefs about social justice in mathematics teacher education, with three factors: (1) value of mathematics for all students; (2) integration of social justice into mathematics instruction; and (3) mathematics and its relation to inclusiveness. The purpose of this study was to validate measures produced by the TMfSJ-beliefs scale and discuss its potential use in teacher education programmes and research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• survey
• beliefs
• mathematics education
• preservice teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.