Cultivating civic empathy and equity with culturally responsive mathematical modelling -

Abstract

Culturally Responsive Mathematical Modelling (CBMM) is an equity and empathy lever in K-12 mathematics as it helps students make sense of real-world situations through problem-posing and decision-making.

When mathematical modelling, students engage in a cyclical process of:

• making sense of situations
• constructing models that represent the situation based on information and assumptions
• using models to perform operations and reason about results in terms of the original situation
• validating or revising the model
• reporting conclusions.

A culturally responsive approach to mathematical modelling explicitly honours children’s diverse knowledge, identities and experiences when solving high cognitive demand tasks. It elevates collaborative participation to disrupt power dynamics and support students to take action to address real-world situations impacting their community.

From an equity standpoint, research shows that CBMM can broaden student participation in STEM, providing space for students to draw on their diverse perspectives, curiosities, and mathematical, linguistic and experiential strengths as resources for learning.

From an empathy standpoint, CBMM is a humanising endeavour, starting with ill-defined, often messy community-based problems and providing opportunities for students to develop empathy and compassion toward other people, living things and our planet. Despite this potential, Mathematical Modelling (MM) in the elementary grades and using a culturally responsive approach to MM are under-researched, especially at the primary level.

In our keynote and workshop, we examine how elementary mathematics teachers promoted empathy and equity through culturally responsive mathematical modelling tasks that impact their communities. We will use a culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework to guide our analysis of the professional learning activities with teachers and researchers.