The Narratives of Eighth Grade Mathematics Teachers Engaging in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy to Mathematically Support Black Boys

Within mathematics education, current deficit narratives contextualize the academic ability of Black boys as inferior or lagging compared to their peers. This gap gazing often fails to critically examine the political, historical, and sociocultural barriers that significantly influence mathematical success. One pedagogical approach to humanize mathematics education for Black boys is culturally relevant pedagogy. Currently, there exists limited research addressing how teachers implement culturally relevant pedagogy with increasing state educational curriculum bans and/or restrictions related to cultural identities. Regarding the state this study took place, the Alabama State Board of Education passed a resolution on the 12th of August 2021 that banned critical race and critical gender studies in educational curriculum. Therefore, this research study investigated how five Alabama eighth grade mathematics teachers described critical moments implementing culturally relevant pedagogy to support Black boys and the ways in which these teachers redefined/redesigned culturally relevant pedagogy with the recent Alabama State Board of Education's resolution. The goal was to develop understanding of states attempts to erase specific cultural identities through the experiential knowledge of the teacher participants. Their rich narratives demonstrated that each teacher continued to attend to the five main principles of culturally relevant pedagogy regardless of the resolution. Each teacher recognized and attended to nurturing the entirety of each student's cultural identity. These findings allowed for potential ways to develop and support teachers' culturally relevant pedagogical practices and methods moving forward. Implication for practitioners and researchers were considered and discussed.