Why Math for Social Justice?
Some see math as:
objective
universal
value-free
(And yes, as a mathematician, I find this comic funny.)
But the problems students encounter can be far from value-free.
Bonnie Shulman brought to light a horrifying example from a 1930s textbook, in her paper “Is there enough poison gas to kill the city?: The teaching of ethics in mathematics classes,” College Mathematics Journal. 33(2): 118–125:
“According to statements of the Draeger Works in Luebeck in the gassing of a city only 50% of the evaporated poison gas is effective. The atmosphere must be poisoned up to a height of 20 metres in a concentration of 45 mg. per cubic metre. How much phosgene is needed to poison a city of 50,000 inhabitants who live in an area of four square kilometres? How much phosgene would the population inhale with the air they breathe in ten minutes without protection against gas, if one person uses 30 litres of breathing air per minute? Compare this quantity with the quantity of the poison gas used.”
Think that such a problematic assignment would never happen here and now? From a 2017 Los Angeles elementary school:
“The master needed 192 slaves to work on [a] plantation in the cotton fields. The fields could fill 75 bags of cotton. Only 96 slaves were able to pick cotton that day. The missus needed them in the Big House to prepare [sic] for the Annual Picnic. How many more slaves are needed in the cotton fields?”
NY Times, “South Carolina 5th Graders Are Asked to Explain K.K.K.’s Thinking” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/south-carolina-teacher-kkk.html
We owe it to our students to provide authentic engagement with problems that address human well-being.
Looking for inspiration? See seminal texts such as
- Marilyn Frankenstein's "Critical Mathematics Education: An application of Paolo Freire's Epistemology," Journal of Education
- Eric (Rico) Gutstein's Reading and writing the world with mathematics: Toward a pedagogy for social justice (2nd edition 2013)
- Eric (Rico) Gutstein and Bob Peterson's Rethinking mathematics: Teaching social justice by the numbers
- Robert Moses, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project (originally published in 2001 as Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights)
- and a special issue of PRIMUS edited by Catherine Buell and Bonnie Shulman focused on Social Justice:
Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies, Volume 29, 2019 - Issue 3-4: Mathematics for Social Justice https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/upri20/29/3-4?nav=tocList
Gizem Karaali and I share thoughts about our book in an interview with Christina Edholm in the MAA's Focus, June/July 2020.