Healing-Centered Educator Activism in Mathematics Actualized by Women of Color Mathematics Teacher Activists

ABSTRACT

Many teacher activists engage in justice-oriented work within and outside their classrooms, yet the work of mathematics teacher activists has been understudied. In this qualitative interview study, I investigated ten women of Color mathematics teacher activists’ actualization of their organizing work, which includes the creation of and participation in grassroots collectives, podcasts, and online communities that aim to disrupt dominant conceptualizations of mathematical knowledge. Building on theories of teacher activism and healing-centered engagement, I share findings of participants’ healing-centered educator activism. From the findings, I theorize a healing-centered educator activism in mathematics framework, which entails centering relationships and community wellness (of humans and the earth) for collective healing, examining and dismantling systems of oppression, broadening conceptualizations of mathematical knowledge, and fostering healthy relationships with dominant mathematics. I discuss constraints and considerations for engaging in healing-centered educator activism as a teacher of mathematics.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the participants in the study and to Nathan Alexander, Teresa Dunleavy, Cecelia Giangacomo, Rochelle Gutiérrez, Taica Hsu, Marc Johnston Guerrero, Danielle Mireles, David Stovall, Fithawee Tzeggai, and reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Throughout this article, I use the terms “activist” and “organizer,” “activism” and “organizing,” “teacher” and “educator,” and “teacher activist” and “educator activist” interchangeably. Participants identified as a woman, womyn, or female (see Table 1). While not ideal nor accurate since each person identified differently, I refer to participants as a group as women of Color, in my best attempt to align with how they identified.

2. I use the word sex because most testing data indicate students’ sex not gender identity.

3. Dominant mathematics refers to school mathematics, seen in textbooks, standards, and standardized tests (Gutiérrez, 2002). Typically, when the word “mathematics” is used, it refers to dominant mathematics.

4. Ethnomathematics refers to a broader definition than dominant (or western) mathematics “practiced among identifiable cultural groups, such as national-tribal societies, labor groups, children of a certain age bracket, professional classes, and so on” (D’Ambrosio, 1985, p. 45).

5. Living mathematx refers to a relational version of mathematics, including analysis and creation of patterns centering joy, harmony, and reconnection with oneself, nature, and others (Gutiérrez, 2017).

6. In Kokka’s (2018) study, Carissa was the woman of Color mathematics educator participant, and she is a participant in the present study as well.

7. I extend hooks (1989) framing cautiously because I do not intend to be reductive.

8. People may identify as gender fluid, gender nonconforming, gender neutral, or other gender identities.

9. Valdez et al. (2018) used “human be” and “human being” as verbs.

10. I use the spelling womxn to demonstrate that I am my own being, not an extension of a man, and in an effort to be more inclusive (Kerr, 2019).

11. I used “social media” here instead of the specific platform Marrielle mentioned to protect her identity.

12. Marisa participated in a previous study (Kokka, 2019), and I interviewed her again in 2019 for the present study.

13. A cypher is a circle of artists (e.g., beatboxers, dancers) who build on one another’s rhythms/art.

14. According to Jasmine, “cada quien” means “each one,” and “each one” includes all living beings/elemental forces. The ending -ito in “granito” speaks to the relation of building upon in the micro and macro sense with respect to the impacts of one’s actions.

15. I was the mathematics teacher activist in Catone’s (2017) study, conducted between 2008 and 2011, when I was a high school mathematics teacher. Catone used participants’ real names in his work.

16. Elsewhere (Kokka, 2019), I studied Marisa’s students’ reactions to critical pedagogy and found that students identified emotions, analyzed structural oppression, and expressed plans for action.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kari Kokka

Kari Kokka is an assistant professor of mathematics education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She studies social justice mathematics, mathematics teacher activism, and mathematics teachers’ learning about justice-oriented teaching. Prior to academia, she was a mathematics teacher and diving coach at Berkeley High School and a mathematics teacher, instructional coach, and teacher activist at Vanguard High School, a New York City Title I public school.