Improvement of Mathematics Literacy in African-American Students: Preparation for Algebra and Higher Mathematics

这项为期三年的研究将深入记录四所城市学校的做法，并为这些学校和/或具体教师在安排或维持学生参加大学预科数学方面有着出色的记录：一所拥有大量非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔学生的旧金山弗朗西斯科中学，一所拥有类似人口概况的波士顿K-6试点学校;在密西西比州的杰克逊有一对高中/支线学校，99%的学生是非洲裔美国人。 本研究将运用民族志的方法，在学校和社区的背景下，考察课堂教师、管理者、青少年的互动。 课堂和课后学习环境将被广泛录像，互动将被分析。 分析将详细说明数学思想的发展以及教学和学习的社会过程。 作为第二个目标，研究人员将检查分析中出现的维度和变量，并考虑大规模定量研究的测量和“操作化”问题。 本研究借鉴了当前学习的理论观点和研究方法，包括情境学习、学习的社会和个人方面的整合、影响学生学习和作为数学学习者的身份的实践社区、话语分析方法、参与结构和数学内容。 参与的学校是“代数项目”的成员，这是一个中学项目，成立于80年代中期，目的是增加少数民族学生在中学后期或高中完成代数并进入大学预科学习的比例。

This three-year study will document in depth, and develop explanatory constructs for, practices in four urban schools where the schools and/or specific teacher have an outstanding record of placing or sustaining students in college preparatory mathematics: a San Francisco middle school with large numbers of African-American and Latino students, a Boston K-6 pilot school with a similara demographic profile; and a high school/feeder school pair in Jackson, MS, with 99% African-American students. The study will use ethnographic methods to examine classroom teachers', administrators', youth interactions, in the context of the school and community. Classrooms and aftershcool learning environments will be extensively videotaped, and interactions will be analyzed. The analyses will detail the development of mathematical ideas as well as the social processes of teaching and learning. As a secondary goal, the researchers will examine dimensions and varibles emerging from the analysis and consider problems of measurement and "operationalization" for large-scale quantitative research. The research draws on current theoretical perspectives and research methods on learning, including situated learning, integration of social and individual aspects of learning, communities of practice that indluence students' learning and identities as mathematics learners, and methods for analysis of discourse, paraticipant structures, and mathematics content. The participating schools are members of the "Algebra Project," a middle schyool project founded in the mid80s to increase proportion of minority students who complete algebra siccessfully in late middle school or high school and enter college preparatory studies.