Student-hood and Minoritization: Positioning in the Mathographies of Brooklyn Youth

Abstract: In this study, autobiographical narrative serves an opportunity to forefront student voices as they make meaning of themselves as mathematics learners in a world where complex cultural and institutional discourses circulate with regards to who belongs in mathematics. This project looks at the ways that students tell their own stories of mathematics learning, and they ways in which they draw upon institutional and cultural narratives to do so, at times taking them up, contesting them, and/or altering those narratives. Two high school math classes, one honors-track Algebra 2 and Trigonometry class and one “off-track” Geometry class, in a large public high school in Brooklyn, NY took part in the study. Student meaning-making is approached through a framework that addresses identity as interactional and positional (Davies & Harre, 1990), and autobiographical narrative as both denotational and interactive (Wortham, 1991). The presentation will review conceptual and analytical framework and preliminary findings.