STEM Learning and Learning Environments  

How Urban Adolescents Come to Think of Themselves as Mathematicians

Effective Years: 2014-2020

In this CAREER award, the investigator will study how African American and Latino middle and high school students construct their sense of self-identity with and in mathematics and the role that teachers play in helping to shape those self-opinions. This is important because many students, particularly in urban settings, have a poor sense of their own potential in mathematics learning which restricts their attainment in high school and future college studies. If researchers can better understand how students form these opinions of their own abilities, future programs could be designed to improve this situation. The project has two specific research objectives: (1) to examine how teacher socialization messages in urban math classrooms relate to students' construction of math identities, and (2) to trace how math identities form and change over time, from middle school to the transition into high school. This project will also model how these various identities predict math achievement outcomes. Survey methodology, semi-structured interviews, and cognitive assessments will be employed to address these objectives. For his CAREER award education plan, the investigator proposes to train undergraduate students to mentor urban middle school students around math identity building and self-efficacy issues. Results of this research will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal articles and conferences and presentations.