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实践，并为这些学校和/或特定教师在安排或支持学生进入大学预科数学方面的出色记录进行解释：一所旧金山中学拥有大量非裔和拉丁裔学生，一所波士顿K-6试点学校具有类似的人口统计特征；以及位于密苏里州杰克逊市的一所高中/支线学校，学生人数占99%。这项研究将使用民族志方法，在学校和社区的背景下，考察课堂教师、管理者、青少年之间的互动。课堂和课后学习环境将被广泛录制下来，并将分析互动。这些分析将详细说明数学思想的发展以及教和学的社会过程。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“可操作性”问题。本研究借鉴了当前关于学习的理论观点和研究方法，包括情境学习，社会和个人学习的整合，影响学生学习和作为数学学习者身份的实践共同体，以及分析语篇、参与结构和数学内容的方法。参与学校是“代数计划”的成员，这是一个成立于80年代中期的中学项目，旨在提高在初中后期或高中顺利完成代数并进入大学预科学习的少数民族学生的比例。

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.