The Real World As We Have Seen It: Latino/a Parents' Voices On Teaching Mathematics For Social Justice

This article describes the views of Latino/a parents who supported social justice mathematics curriculum for their children in a 7th-grade Chicago public school classroom in which I was the teacher. The parents viewed dealing with and resisting oppression as necessary parts of their lives; they also saw mathematics as integral and important. Because (mathematics) education should prepare one for life—and injustice, resistance, and mathematics were all interconnected parts of life—an education made sense if it prepared children to be aware of and respond to injustices that they faced as members of marginalized communities. Such education may be unusual, but it was congruent with the parents' core values and worth standing up for.