RESEARCH AGENDA: AN OVERVIEW National Science Foundation Award No. ESI

RESEARCH CEMELA aims to understand the interplay of learning mathematics and the unique language, social and political issues that affect Latino communities. CEMELA’s holistic approach includes various parties interested in the education of children: parents, teachers, school administrators, and university faculty. CEMELA research and findings will be relevant not only to Latinos but also to other groups of linguistically and culturally diverse students through the development of theory and practice for turning language and cultural diversity into assets for the mathematics education of all students. CEMELA conducts research in four areas: Student learning; community and parents; teaching and teacher education; and policy. Several single-site and multi-site research studies are in the planning stages.

CEMELA-WIDE RESEARCH QUESTIONS What is the nature of Latino/a learners’ mathematical understanding and language use in multiple settings? What is the nature of teachers’ knowledge and use of Latino/a students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds to create effective mathematics learning environments? What is the nature of Latino/a parents’ perceptions of the teaching and learning of mathematics? What is the impact of policy on Latino students’ learning of mathematics?

SETTINGS FOR THIS RESEARCH Teacher Study Groups Courses for Teachers & Lesson Study Summer Institutes Parents’ Workshops K-8 Classrooms After-School Projects

A CLOSER LOOK AT Research with Parents The After-School Project

RESEARCH WITH PARENTS Research builds on our prior work with parents in Latino communities towards the development of a model for parental engagement in mathematics education. This model is co-constructed with the parents as researchers. Parents’ workshops become an arena to develop a two-way dialogue (community  school/university) about mathematics. Classroom visits provide a setting to engage with parents as researchers in mathematics education.

POTENTIAL RELATED STUDIES (e.g., dissertations / post-doc projects) Parents’ understanding of a topic in mathematics (e.g. proportional reasoning or data interpretation) Parents – children interactions around homework Parents – children interactions in an after school project (with parents as co-facilitators of mathematics activities) Case studies to exemplify parents’ understanding of teaching and learning mathematics

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS / IMPLICATIONS We need to work on the development of a revised definition of family involvement: –Seeing parents as intellectual resources; –Breaking down the barriers between teachers and parents: work on dialogue; –Coming to think of this as a partnership that gives parents meaningful roles. The teachers have a very different view of what parents know, what they really know. “Oh, this is easy. They should know all this.” But parents don’t. They’re looking at numbers going, I really don’t know what they want us to do with it or find the product of these two numbers. Well, maybe they forgot what product means. Right there they don’t know what to do. [Candida, mother] The whole point was for parents to come in and teach math to other parents so that they wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable, or intimidated by teachers. Teachers can come in and teach, that’s what they do, but when you have another parent teaching you, it’s special, you can absorb a lot more. [Jillian, mother]

We need to be aware of the importance of the school climate: –Schools are not always welcoming places for all parents –Parents want: Opportunities to learn about school culture not just from the staff but also from other parents who have been through the situation; To be able to create their own support groups and network and receive support from the school; To use the resources present in their communities. When I go the school meetings, in the cafeteria, they are hardly ever bilingual, especially now that we don’t have the bilingual program anymore. I attend so that they see that I am interested, but not because I think that I’m going to come back with something or that I’m going to understand. [Verónica – mother]

We need to gain a better understanding of parents’ (particularly immigrant parents) experiences with the teaching and learning of mathematics and build on those experiences: –Parents have knowledge that is often not valued –The differences in approaches may turn into conflict between children and parents My older daughter, the one who is in 5th grade, tells me “mommy, I am going to explain something to you that you did not learn in your class,” because we have already had problems about the fact that I know it a certain way and she knows it in a different way, and I ask her “why?”, “I don’t know”, she says, “but you explain it differently; I am going to explain it to you like they explained to me.” I was totally floored, because how they explain it here it’s easier and over there they go in depth for everything, and here no, here they only tell you how and how and that’s it, and I tell her “mija, what I am telling you is that it comes from the roots, from below,” “ah no mommy, I don’t have to learn the roots” she says, “if I already know how to do it up here, why do I need to see it from below.” [Lucinda, mother]

PARENTS WANT TO BE HEARD Cuentas pero no cuentas, estás pero no estás, simbólicamente vas pero … [Esperanza, mother] [You count but you don’t count, you are there but you are not, you attend simbolically but…]

AFTER-SCHOOL PROJECT LENA…. YOUR TURN…