Mathematics teachers’ enactment of cognitively demanding tasks and students’ perception of racial differences in opportunity

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether secondary students in an urban school district perceived racial differences in opportunity to be successful in mathematics, whether those perceptions differed between students of color and white students, and the relation of those perceptions to teachers’ choice and implementation of mathematical tasks. The results of multi-level regression models based on student survey and teacher observation data revealed two primary findings: (a) students of color were more likely to perceive opportunity differences than were white students; and (b) this difference was greater in classrooms in which teachers attempted to use cognitively demanding tasks but allowed the cognitive demand to decline during the lesson. Implications for both future research and mathematics teacher education are discussed.

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1321216. Thanks to the students and teachers for allowing us into their classrooms, to the external evaluation team for their work on classroom observations, to Niral Shah for feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript, to Ze Wang for statistical guidance, and to Calli Shekell for contributions early on. Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Chuck Munter, University of Missouri, Department of Learning, Teaching, & Curriculum, 121D Townsend Hall, Columbia, MO 65211. Email: [email protected], Phone: [phone].

Notes

1. We follow Gotanda (1991) in capitalizing Black and not capitalizing white (except when it is the first word in a sentence or row of a table, or was capitalized in a direct quote).

2. Following Levy et al. (2016), we use the conventional term “perceived discrimination,” but acknowledge that discrimination can limit students’ opportunities without being perceived.

3. Of course, what it means to “succeed in mathematics” is defined in a variety of ways by a variety of stakeholders, whose perspectives and assumptions are shaped by particular ideologies, epistemic commitments, and policy contexts. We have our own ideas of what it means to be successful in mathematics, but, ultimately, we assume that students construct their own definitions (English-Clarke, 2011). And, while those definitions are likely informed, in part (but not entirely), by a number of local indicators, including grades, course-taking (i.e., “advanced” level mathematics or not), and state test scores, we also assume that students construct different definitions of success, depending on their experiences and backgrounds, which then shape their perceptions of opportunity and differences in opportunity.

4. In the remainder of the article we use “discrimination” and “racial difference in opportunity” interchangeably. With respect to both, our interest is in student perceptions of a disadvantage for students of color compared to white students.

5. The omega statistic is more appropriate than Cronbach’s alpha for dichotomous items (Napolitano, Callina, & Mueller, 2013) and more appropriate than the Kuder-Richardson coefficient for short scales (Rammstedt & Beierlein, 2014), both of which were 0.85 in this case.