Chapter 11: Mathematics Teaching With a Vision of Social Justice: Using the Lens of Communities of Practice

In this chapter, we analyze a mathematics teaching practice guided by a vision of social justice at the heart of a Latino community. This study builds on contemporary understandings about mathematics learning from a critical and situated perspective that includes the historical and sociocultural milieu as constituting the academic opportunities of Latino students and the workspace of teachers.

Educational institutions often ground mathematics teaching on the assumptions that learning is an individual endeavor best learned if the curriculum is decontextualized and that learning is always the result of direct instruction (Wenger, 1998). In the sociopolitical context of the early 21st century, many mathematics educators are challenging this perspective, suggesting that the underlying mandated initiatives found in the contemporary policy climate ignore the purposes and needs of disenfranchised communities. An education that positions students as objects to change rather than agents of change reproduces unequal power structures.