Carlos Nicolas Gómez Marchant

CAREER: Mi Raza, Mi Lengua, Mis Matematicas: Latinx Students' Counter-stories as Doers-of-Mathematics (Mi3)
Having a better understanding of Latino students' perspectives and experiences is imperative to improving their opportunities to learn mathematics. Yet, little research has made central Latinos students' perspectives of learning and doing mathematics, especially over a critical period of time like the transition from elementary to middle school. The goal of this study will be to improve mathematics teaching and learning for Latino youth as they move from upper elementary to early middle school mathematics classrooms. The project involves three major parts: investigating the policy, media, and oral histories of Latino families/communities to understand the context for participating Latino students' mathematics education; exploring Latino students' stories about their experiences learning and doing mathematics to understand these students' perspectives; and creating documentary video portraitures (or composite cases) of participants stories about learning and doing mathematics that can be used in teacher preparation and professional development. Finally, the project will look across the experiences over the duration of the project to develop a framework that can be used to improve Latino students' mathematics education experiences.

RAPID: Mathematics Within the Tapestry of Civic Engagement Discourse
Quantitative measures and their interpretations play a significant role in school administrators? and community members? argumentation during civic discourses. In the public sphere, quantitative measures have long been used to signal logic and objectivity to mathematical models and characterizations of phenomena, which disproportionately affect Communities of Color. The effects have had historical and contemporary implications with respect to school change, including closures, mergers, and funding allocations. This study provides an opportunity to understand how mathematical ideas and discourses are weaved into civic engagements of communities. A richer understanding of mathematics within the tapestry of civic discourses is needed. Employing an ethnographic research design, the overarching research question is: What mathematical ideas are used by school district personnel and community members during discussions of school district change? This research will focus on the following three specific objectives: 1) Analyze and compare mathematical discourses by community members, district personnel, and policy makers; 2) Develop a data-driven conceptual framework for understanding (a) the mathematics used during civic engagement and (b) the perpetuation of mathematics as neutral, ahistorical, objective; and 3) Design video cases emphasizing the use of racial and mathematical discourses for developing teachers?, students?, and leaders? conocimiento, knowledge and consciousness, with respect to civil engagement.