Why and How Might High School Mathematics Teachers Have Students’ Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice?

Whether we talk about it or not, our students regularly experience the impacts of social privilege, oppression, opportunity, power, and activism every day. Children in schools and communities are faced each day with disparities in opportunity and are often forced into systems of inequity that maintain social status quo. It is not only our teaching that impacts students’ social and mathematical identities, but the contexts we select to draw upon sends a message of what is deemed as valuable. Students have concerns about their world, their community, and their family; yet, teachers often decontextualize subjects like mathematics, devaluing these aspects of student identity. By not using relatable contexts, students experience mathematics learning in an environment that may suggest their or their families’ experiences are unimportant.