Teaching Preservice Elementary Mathematics Teachers Through a Social Justice Lens

Abstract

The current political and social climate necessitates increasing pre-service teachers’ awareness of issues around social justice—including concerns around racial, economic and gender and sexuality justice. In this paper, we present observations and outcomes from the first iterations of a university-level mathematics course in which mathematical topics are introduced to pre-service teachers through studying issues around social justice. The key idea is that a social justice topic serves as the vehicle through which to further investigate a mathematical idea, going beyond just applying mathematical topics to exercises that touch on social justice themes. We present a unique opportunity to implement a nontraditional mathematics course that serves to open students’ eyes to how the power of mathematics can be used to study the world around them.