"Our experience indicates that not compromising on equity is possible - not easy, but possible. As an educational community we have enough knowledge to make a significant difference on the mathematical (indeed the school) experiences and success of students who have traditionally not been successful. What is necessary is the will to do it."
- Julian Weissglass, No Compromise on Equity in Mathematics Education: Developing an Infrastructure(2000)


Weaving Gender Equity into Math Reform seeks to assist staff developers, curriculum writers, and workshop leaders in expanding the equity content of their workshops, videos, and written materials for teachers. Our project is investigating the specific question of gender equity in math reform, as well as the larger equity issues that these reforms pose for students from various academic, socio-economic, and linguistic backgrounds.

Many of the NSF-funded math curricula offer (or will be offering) staff development workshops to accompany the adoption of the curricula in schools and districts. While much of this staff development focuses on providing teachers with a solid grounding in the mathematical content of the curricula, an opportunity exists within these efforts to incorporate equity in a substantive way. As part of the Weaving Gender Equity into Math Reform project, we hope to provide teachers, administrators, staff developers, and others with the tools to implement themes and practices related to equity in their professions. Our project is focusing on how issues of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and language impact the elementary reform math classroom. We plan to capitalize on the staff development geared toward teachers new to these curricula by "weaving" equity in to the workshops and print materials.

Some of the questions our project is asking are:

  • What are some of the main equity issues for standards-based elementary mathematics curricula?

  • What support do teachers, parents, and administrators need to reflect on and change practices that may negatively effect students of various backgrounds?

  • What are effective models for staff development regarding work with equity?

  • How can equity issues be successfully connected to curriculum so they are at the forefront of the change process?

  • What happens in schools and classrooms that produces unequal access and unequal success? What can professional development efforts do to help solve these problems?

  • To what extent are we addressing equity issues explicitly versus implicitly in staff development work with teachers? Which approach works better in different situations?

Our project is composed of a six-person team. Jan Mokros is a developmental psychologist at TERC whose work focuses on equity in math learning, the impact of Standards-based curricula on children's learning, and parent-child interactions in mathematics. Hollee Freeman is a senior research associate at TERC and is extremely interested in issues of equity in schools and how these issues affect children of color in communities across the country. Christina Perez is a research associate at TERC whose dual degree in Public Policy and Women Studies drew her into equity in education. Julian Weissglass is a professor of Mathematics at the University of California Santa Barbara where he directs the National Coalition for Equity in Education. Nancy Terman is a former mathematics high school teacher who is a Core Staff Member for the National Coalition for Equity in Mathematics Education and Director of the Tri-County Mathematics Project (a site of the California Math Project). Ana M. Becerra, Ph.D. has been in education for 27 years as a classroom teacher, a science mentor teacher, and a coordinator/presentator for several mathematics and science education equity workshops and conferences.