Elementary Preservice Teacher\u27s Knowledge of Equity Based Mathematics Instruction

Research clearly identifies equity as a concept that represents social justice and fairness, however, many teachers have limited understanding of the concept (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017; MacDonald, 2005). Many studies have been conducted attempting to understand why teachers typically do not regard equitable teaching practices as a priority in the classroom. In a southeastern primarily teaching university,the researcher taught an elementary mathematics methods course, which was the context of this study. Of the 35 PSTs enrolled in the course 22 were dual certification (special education) and 13 were traditional elementary certification. There was one male student and the rest were female. The researcher met with the PSTs for 15 sessions for 2.5 hours each session. Before taking the methods course the PSTs had taken 1 content course and were enrolled in a second course concurrently with the methods. The purpose of this study was to examine preservice elementary teacher’s knowledge of equity-based mathematics instruction. When asked about their knowledge for equity-based mathematics instruction all of the preservice teachers in this course expressed no knowledge of equity based mathematics or equity based instruction in mathematics. Several teachers mentioned, “I have no idea what equity-based instruction is, I have never heard of it.” Similarly, other teachers described equity-based instruction as a concept they had vaguely recall hearing but with connection to how it would look in the classroom. An additional theme that emerged was that many of the PSTs indicated they had not learned anything about equity during their teacher preparation program