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Browsing by Author "Arnold, Elizabeth, committee member"

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    Exploring women of color's expressions of mathematical identity: the role of institutional resources and mathematical values
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Street, Ciera, author; Ellis Hagman, Jessica, advisor; Soto, Hortensia, committee member; Arnold, Elizabeth, committee member; Most, David, committee member
    There is a persistent and growing global call to examine, challenge, and transform exclusionary structures and systems within mathematics education (Laursen & Austin, 2020; Reinholz et al., 2019; Thomas & Drake, 2016; Wagner et al., 2020). An important component of this call examines students' mathematical identity. While a growing body of work considers how students' social identities interplay with their mathematical identity (e.g., Akin et al., 2022; English-Clarke et al., 2012), few studies consider mathematical identity at the intersection of gender and race (Ibourk et al., 2022; Leyva, 2016; 2021). This dissertation study explores undergraduate women of color's expressions of mathematical identity and the institutional structures and ideologies that influence these expressions. Following a three-paper model, each paper utilizes critical theories and an intersectional lens to recognize the gendered and racialized context of higher education mathematical spaces and the ways these discourses influence women of color's mathematical identity. The first paper employs large-scale quantitative and qualitative data from a national survey on students' undergraduate calculus experiences to explore women of color's expressions of mathematical identity. Informed by Data Feminism, I use a cluster analysis to group women of color survey respondents based on four subdomains of mathematical identity and contextualize each group using qualitative survey responses. The second paper draws from Nasir's (2011) material and relational identity resources to examine the institutional resources available and accessible to undergraduate women of color to support their mathematical identity. Results from participant interviews indicate various supportive identity resources, such as peer relationships and student support programs. The results also describe unavailable, inaccessible, or detrimental identity resources, such as the lack of representation within the mathematics faculty and an exclusionary mathematics community. Using a sociopolitical lens, the third paper discusses the sociohistorical background of white, patriarchal mathematical values and the ways these values create inequities in undergraduate mathematical spaces. Interviews with participants suggest a clear misalignment between these sociohistorical mathematical values and women of color's mathematical and mathematics education values. Together, these three papers emphasize within-group differences among women of color's mathematical identity and the different ways material, relational, and ideological resources can support or hinder women of color's mathematical identities. I conclude this dissertation study by illustrating connections across the three papers. I also provide implications for teaching, policy, and research to challenge exclusionary mathematical systems and support women of color's mathematical identity.
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    Investigating individually expressed motives and collectively generated goals for equity-oriented reform in undergraduate mathematics education
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Tremaine, Rachel, author; Hagman, Jess Ellis, advisor; Arnold, Elizabeth, committee member; Miranda, Rick, committee member; Basile, Vincent, committee member; DiGregorio, Gaye, committee member
    Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an explicitly stated goal of many mathematics departments across the country, and addressing ongoing disparities in outcomes and experiences within undergraduate mathematics is a shared responsibility among undergraduate mathematics community members. Despite the prevalence of ideological, political, and contextual barriers to equity-oriented action within undergraduate mathematics spaces, many community members can and do take a responsive stance toward enhancing DEI within their department and at their institution. Understanding how mathematics faculty members, administrators, and students are personally motivated to take up work toward these aims within their own mathematics departments is paramount in ensuring that such work continues. In this dissertation I present two investigations which draw on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as a conceptual and theoretical lens. In the first investigation, I analyze the motives of 30 undergraduate mathematics community members (five administrators, 17 faculty members, and eight students) across three institutions to understand their reasoning for participation in an intradepartmental community focused on creating transformative, equity-oriented change within introductory mathematics courses. A reflexive thematic analysis of journal entries and individual interviews with participants resulted in five themes which motivated participation in collaborative equity reform within their mathematics department: a relational motive, a self-improvement motive, a student experience motive, an influence motive, and a values to action motive. With these themes in mind, I then consider how a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) at one institution developed a shared object for their work through a CHAT lens, highlighting what rules, communities, subjects, artifacts, and divisions of labor proved salient to this development. The prevalence and pervasiveness of self-interests, identity neutrality, and paternalism are critically discussed within the context of these investigations, and I build on existing literature to produce recommendations for disrupting such ideologies to produce transformative change in undergraduate mathematics environments. Among these recommendations are the need for critical engagement to see beyond self-interest in the context of one's own reform work, and the need for collaborative reform groups to not only position students as experts on their own experiences, but to also conceptualize instructors as novices on student experiences. I conclude with a discussion of future work supporting continued theorizing of the link between individually expressed motives and collectively generated goals in undergraduate mathematics reform efforts.