Chapter 4: Culturally Competent Mathematics Instruction for African American Children: A Review of Promising Practices in Schools, Classrooms, Homes and Communities

The Academy Award-winning film, Hidden Figures (Gigliotti et al., 2016), presents an important yet often obscured part of American history: how three African American female pioneers calculated by hand the complex equations that allowed NASA astronauts to travel safely to space in the late 1960s. What Hidden Figures offers is a counternarrative to the prevailing flood of stories of African American students’ failure in mathematical achievement. Building on this counterexample, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the unique challenges African American children face in mathematics education due to issues of discrimination, and to highlight the role of family engagement as a source of resilience that supports children and sets them on pathways to academic success. Specifically, this chapter reviews promising practices for, and provides recommendations about, how school leaders, teachers, and families can work together to positively influence mathematical outcomes for African American children.