Chapter 3: Problematizing Family Engagement in Building Bridges to Improve Mathematics Education: Spaces for Participation

In this chapter, we explore how family members build bridges in schools by participating in teaching and learning mathematics. We seek to understand how family members participate in bridging learning activities as they explain it in their own voices through video excerpts. We also draw on their statements to analyze the impact of structural barriers, which tend to make building bridges difficult in schools, as well as on their own social presentations, which also mediate their engagement either in mathematical activities or interactions with their children’s teachers of mathematics. The question we address here is: How do families (parents¹/other significant adults) experience participation in school mathematics? We draw on video excerpts that capture moments of participants’ personal meaning, personal intent, and personal struggle. Video-based evidence captures the personal conflicts, unique dilemmas, and in general the complex process of family participation, as experienced by individuals who search for and try to make sense of bridging spaces of participation (Díez-Palomar & Prat, 2009).