Entangling and Disentangling Inquiry and Equity: Voices of Mathematics Education and Mathematics Professors

Abstract

Professors of mathematics and mathematics education engage in inquiry, and, as teachers of mathematics, they engage their students in inquiry. How could this work be more equity-minded? After participating in inquiry during a summer institute, 24 mathematics education professors and mathematics professors shared their voices during two interviews about how equity and inquiry intertwine. These participants engaged in a co-writing process to equitably inquire together for this paper. Findings are presented in a framework of relationships between inquiry and equity, which extend the previous work of Tang and colleagues (2017), illustrating that (a) equity opportunities and dilemmas are always present during inquiry, (b) we can see equity (or in-equity) in inquiry (occurring during the process of engaging in inquiry), and (b) some participants conducted inquiry for equity (the propose of inquiry was to work toward greater equity). Contributions of this paper include a framework for how equity and inquiry intertwine, for both teaching and collaborative scholarship, and an illustration of equitable inquiry in practice, through co-writing. Implications of this study include a greater awareness of considerations for being equity-minded when facilitating inquiry-oriented instruction or when mathematics education professors and mathematics professors collaborate in their scholarly inquiry.