Teaching mathematics for justice: Pedagogies of discomfort, contradictions and dialogue

This paper explores learning to teach mathematics for social justice (MfSJ). As practicing teachers, graduate students and teacher educators the five authors with three colleagues from five countries came together to dialogue on possibilities and challenges of teaching MfSJ. Social justice projects were designed and some implemented in mathematics classrooms. Transcripts of each dialogue meeting inspired questions for the next. Results indicate contexts for teaching MfSJ were inspired by perceived curiosities of students and personal interests of instructors on local and global issues. Challenges were analyzed in terms of contradictions and expressed discomfort. The study highlights complexities of learning to teach MfSJ and offers pedagogies of dialogue and discomfort toward continued learning.