“Nobody’s Rich and Nobody’s Poor … It Sounds Good, but It’s Actually Not”: Affluent Students Learning Mathematics and Social Justice

Abstract

This article investigates how affluent students made sense of social justice issues that were embedded in mathematics learning activities. I present 2 case studies of such activities at the intermediate and secondary levels in 2 different schools. The analysis draws on video records and classroom artifacts and applies the theoretical framework of figured worlds to consider how students drew on their past experiences and on the structure of the classroom activities to understand the mathematics and the social justice issues. The analysis demonstrates how the 1st activity provided a familiar figured world to support learning about issues of wealth distribution. In the 2nd activity, because of a lack of what are termed intermediary figured worlds, students were left to draw on only their own experiences and background knowledge, including stereotypes about poor neighborhoods.

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