From “Eye-opening” to Mathematical: Helping Preservice Teachers Look for Mathematics in Stories of Oppression

Abstract

This article analyzes preservice teachers’ reflections about a visit to a campus event focused on injustice and oppression that they were required to attend as part of an assignment in a mathematics content course for preservice K-8 teachers. Prior to the assignment, the preservice teachers had had limited exposure to social justice-based mathematics contexts and extracting mathematics from the real-world. Their reflections provide valuable information about the types of social justice contexts preservice teachers find relevant, and the mathematical possibilities they see, on their own, in events such as this one.