Abstract
There were two research questions that guided the study: 1. How do racially minoritized and emergent bilingual students take up the teacher’s interactive and reflexive positioning to participate in mathematics discourse communities? 2. What are racially minoritized and emergent bilingual students’ perceptions of the teacher’s positioning moves to facilitate participation in mathematics discourse communities?
Findings for this study revealed that the four focal students were positioned as mathematical authorities to different extents but that the teacher was most commonly positioned as a mathematical authority. The students also perceived the purpose of all the teachers’ moves except for the practice of asking students rigorous questions to be allowing students to hear and benefit from the ideas of other students. The majority of the focal students also regarded the positioning moves positively, with the exception of presenting their ideas at the board and being asked to revoice the utterances of other students.
Implications and three further directions for research are also discussed. Because of the hurdles faced by the teacher researcher in implementing all moves with consistency and fidelity, future studies involving teacher researchers may allow for a better understanding of the challenges involved in adjusting teaching practice based on research. Another direction for future research would be exploring the effectiveness of specific positioning moves so as to understand why they were perceived differently and had different levels of impact on students’ positioning. Lastly, as a result of the fact that the teacher maintained much of the authority within the classroom, the impact of compliance-based school cultures on students’ development of mathematical authority will be important to investigate as well.