Prof: Algebra, geometry perpetuate "whiteness", "unearned privilege" in society

"Minorities have experienced microaggressions from participating in math classrooms"

A math education professor at the University of Illinois has argued in a recently published academic book that algebraic and geometry skills perpetuate “unearned privilege” among white people.

Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Illinois, made the claim in a anthology for math teachers, arguing that teachers must be aware of the “politics that mathematics brings” in society.

In the book chapter, the professor explains that she sees her role as a math educator not just in the way of an educator, but that of an activist against whiteness, which she claims facilitates “microagresssions” and “privilege” between those who excel in math and those who do not.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Gutierrez argued.

Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

“Perhaps more importantly, mathematics operates with unearned privilege in society, just like Whiteness. Mathematics is viewed as so pure it has become the discipline by which we measure other disciplines,” she writes.

According to the professor, math also helps actively perpetuate white privilege too, since the way our economy places a premium on math skills gives math a form of “unearned privilege” for math professors, who are disproportionately white.

“Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” she asks, further wondering why math professors get more research grants than “social studies or English” professors.

Further, she also worries that evaluations of math skills can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially if they do worse than their white counterparts.

“If one is not viewed as mathematical, there will always be a sense of inferiority that can be summoned,” she says, adding that there are so many minorities who “have experienced microaggressions from participating in math classrooms… [where people are] judged by whether they can reason abstractly.”

“It is not just that teaching is political; mathematics is also political. Therefore, whether we recognize it or not, mathematics teaching is a highly political activity,” Gutierrez writes.

To fight this, Gutierrez encourages aspiring math teachers to develop a sense of “political conocimiento,” a Spanish phrase for “political knowledge for teaching.”

“Is it just mathematics teaching that is political, or is there actually something about mathematics as a discipline that is political? A number of researchers across the globe have begun to highlight the ways in which knowledge, power, and identity are interwoven with mathematics, something called the "sociopolitical turn

Gutierrez stresses that all knowledge is “relational,” asserting that “Things cannot be known objectively; they must be known subjectively.”

“In essence, political conocimiento is the kind of knowledge that allows you to see how politics permeates everything we do, in education in general and mathematics in particular, and affects how we are connected to each other today and how we might envision a different, more humane connection for the future.”

She is a current professor at the University of Illinois, specializing in Curriculum and Instruction teaching to aspiring teachers — the same teachers she hopes to inspire and educate with her writings.

“She also builds upon Indigenous principles and has argued for a new form of mathematics where humans are no long centered. This form of mathematics is referred to as living mathematx,” according to her biography page.

She teaches a few dozen math teachers a year — math teachers that will go on to eventually teach hundreds of students if not thousands over the course of their career — and recently was elected to the National Academy of Education, according to an institutional press release.

“We are delighted to see Gutiérrez and her innovative, meaningful scholarship being recognized at the highest level with her election to the National Academy of Education,” said Chrystalla Mouza, the dean of the College of Education and the Gutgsell Professor of Curriculum and Instruction.

“Her body of work in mathematics education is truly trailblazing, and her commitment to interrogating the status quo — for the good of society — is both inspiring and essential.”

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