The Role of Academic Communities

Overview

This paper draws from a longitudinal, multi-sited study of African American high achievers in mathematics. I describe how academic communities operate to facilitate mathematics engagement and socialization for high school students and mathematicians in multiple sites—within schools, outside of schools, and within “in-between” spaces. Given the preponderance of research that reifies the status of African Americans in mathematics as “low achievers”, this work offers a new perspective on how communities broadly defined can and do support mathematical excellence.

Perspectives

In my research, I have embarked on an agenda that focuses on mathematically talented underrepresented persons with the goal of examining the factors that contribute to their success. In previous work, I described the role of academic communities (comprising students’ peer groups, families, and school networks) within multiple worlds (Phelan, Davidson, & Yu, 1988) in facilitating urban high school students’ mathematics success (Author).  What this examination lacked, however, was a discussion of the dimensions in which these communities operated and how this multidimensionality facilitated students’ mathematics engagement and socialization.  In a subsequent study of 40 black mathematicians, I sought to understand the role of academic communities in facilitating their success across their formative, educational, and professional experiences.  In particular, I revisit the high school students’ data and analyze the mathematicians’ data to explore the concepts of mathematics engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004) across behavioral, emotional, and cognitive domains and mathematics socialization (Martin, 2006). In the proposed paper, I explore how these concepts are developed and sustained by academic communities.  In addition, I explore how these mechanisms operate within and outside of schools as well as in spaces “in-between” for both high school students and mathematicians.  Exploring these constructs within two distinct groups—high school students and mathematicians—allows for deeper understanding of how young people and adults make meaning of mathematics experiences in adolescence and beyond that shape their identities as “mathematical people”. In mathematicians, we have the added advantage of seeing the full expression of a mathematics identity (Martin, 2006) that is reflected in how “socialization experiences [have been] interpreted and internalized to shape [mathematicians’] beliefs about mathematics and themselves as doers of mathematics” (p. 207).

Data Sources and Methods

Qualitative research methods were used in this study. The primary data sources are semi-structured interviews conducted with high school students and mathematicians. For each set of participants, an interview protocol including questions relating to academic communities was designed. Interviews were transcribed, and then analyzed using coding procedures outlined by Miles and Huberman (1994).  I began by closely reading the interview transcripts to identify major themes relating to mathematics experiences.  These transcripts were also read by students in graduate seminars.  When there was agreement about the major themes, we used these preliminary themes to generate codes, which were used to categorize interview responses.  During the coding process, themes relating to participants’ peer, family, and school worlds, and whether those worlds occupied in or out of school or “in-between” dimensions were characterized. Markers of behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement were also noted. Students in the seminar also assisted with coding.  Finally, a second coder and I used organizational matrices to refine the coding, and target the objectives relating to engagement and socialization for this study.

Results

Academic communities for both high school students and mathematicians that supported mathematics engagement and socialization existed across multiple spaces—within schools, outside of schools, and in “hybrid spaces”. For both sets of participants, I present brief summaries of findings, focusing here on out of school and hybrid spaces. The completed paper includes a discussion of within school spaces and also provides an analysis of academic communities’ social, historical, and cultural contexts that support engagement and socialization.

Mathematics engagement and socialization outside of school

For both mathematicians and high school students, substantial mathematics socialization experiences occurred outside of school settings.  For mathematicians, out of school experiences facilitated interest and success in mathematics, and focused on mathematical content. One respondent described a mental puzzle given to him as a child by his grandfather that he now uses with his college students to discuss the concept of convergence.  This experience and others recounted by mathematicians underscores several connections: it describes the role of family in facilitating exposure to mathematics content, and it also describes how an out of classroom mathematics experience can reinforce school mathematics learning.

Mathematics engagement and socialization in “in-between” spaces

High school students tend to describe their mathematics socialization experiences in affective terms, but they also show that they can appreciate the cognitive dimensions of those experiences. In short, the math is not just “fun”:

Yeah, Mr. Lawrence is cool, you know. We get along or whatever, we like talking about math, and like he challenges me, like he gives me puzzles, math puzzles to do…like to exercise my mind or something. (laughs). It helps, like you know, it made me think fast or whatever.

Mathematicians and high school students describe teachers and professors as people who occupy fluid, dynamic roles that have strong relationship ties but also are centered on developing mathematical knowledge and participants as “mathematical people”. They also describe numerous interactions with peers outside of school around school mathematics—solving homework problems or tutoring friends and colleagues.

Educational Importance

In examining the experiences of underrepresented mathematicians and high achieving high school students, we might discover commonalities in experiences as well as mechanisms to promote engagement (and hopefully, learning and achievement). This study demonstrates the importance of attending to developing students’ mathematical selves both within and outside of the classroom, and providing opportunities where students are exposed to rich mathematical content and socialization experiences in multiple spaces, both likely and unlikely.  It sheds light on the often unrecognized and undervalued communities that students bring with them to school that support their academic and mathematical work. Finally, it encourages us to rethink how and where mathematics education occurs, so that we might ensure better teaching and learning for all students.

References

Author. (2006).

Fredricks, J.A., Blumenfeld, P.C., & Paris, A.H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74 (1), 59-109.

Martin, D.B. (2006). Research race in mathematics education. Teachers College Record, 111 (2), 295-338.

Martin, D.B. (2009). Mathematics learning and participation as racialized forms of experience: African American parents speak on the struggle for mathematics literacy. Mathematical thinking and learning, 8  (3), 197-229.

Miles, M.B. & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Phelan, P., Davidson, A.L., & Yu, H.C. (1998).  Adolescents’ worlds: negotiating family, peers, and school.  New York: Teachers College Press.