Diana Brandy Erchick, Ph. D.
Focus and Development
My scholarly agenda began with an emphasis on inquiry around the relationship between gender and mathematics. That agenda eventually developed into inquiry around the gender-related concept of voice, and, in particular, the processes of developing what I define as “mathematical voice.” I began that work around the ways in which women develop mathematical voice, and, although adhering to that focus, eventually drew additional connected sociocultural elements into my inquiries. Currently, my work has moved to focus on a broader selection of sociocultural elements, mathematical voice, and the connected elements of agency and autonomy. I find these elements coming together in the social justice agenda that is a clear component of my teaching and program work. In particular, the current context of my social just work in the Mathematics Coaching Program (MCP). Below is a description of how my social justice agenda came to its present state.
My first publication, “Women’s Voices and the Experience of Mathematics” (1996) set the theoretical foundation for beginning this work. It is a work where I explore and apply to mathematics the epistemological perspectives as presented in the model of Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986). Following that work was my dissertation, Women and Mathematics: Negotiating the Space/Barrier (1996) where I used mathematics life history to explore the development of voice with women teaching children mathematics. In this work I conceptualized the process the women use as negotiating the “Space/Barrier” and currently have in review a more thorough and developed version of that work for publication as a book.
The book chapter, “Developing a relationship with mathematics: Women reflecting on the adolescent years” (2001) is grounded in a subset of my dissertation data. That work focused on a specific time period in my participants’ lives and drew my work into that realm. The women in my research typically are women who teach children mathematics; and many of the significant experiences they have with mathematics occurred in their own schooling. The focus on adolescent experiences, and the opportunity to work with women who teach children mathematics and have a willingness to reflect upon their own learning, together contributed to a redefined focus. Thus, the development of women’s mathematical voice remained a focus, and how that voice developed within the teaching and learning of school mathematics became a natural context for my work.
The School Science and Mathematics article, “‘The Square Thing’ as a context for understanding, reasoning and ways of knowing mathematics” (2002) is an example of how one who teaches mathematics can allow for the emergence of multiple solutions in mathematical problem solving. This is again work around the adolescent experience. These multiple solutions reveal not only the students’ voices, but hold the potential for more. Such work is integrally connected to the recent National Council of Teachers of Mathematics attention to representation as a mathematical process (2000). For the purposes of my scholarly agenda, defining the sociocultural influences in both the student’s epistemological voices and their subsequent preferences for mathematical representations combine to define the current direction of my work.
Towards studying the ways in which sociocultural elements influence mathematical voice, I first-authored “Emergent voices: Confronting sociopolitical elements in preservice education” (2003) in Pedagogy, Culture, and Society. In this paper, my colleague and I explore, through example vignettes drawn from our experiences in preservice content methods classrooms, confrontations with sociopolitical elements. We suggest that those with a commitment to addressing the sociopolitical elements inherent in the work of educators, raise questions in the preservice classroom, remain attuned to the interns’ voices, be courageous in designing and enacting their pedagogy, and continuously (re)construct their own pedagogy in order to make social and cultural concepts an integral part of their pedagogy.
Scholarship as Service
As part of my commitment to continue and to support inquiry around women’s experiences with mathematics, I have taken the lead on a five-year project through the Working Group on Gender and Mathematics of the Psychology of Mathematics Education – NA organization. That project’s history and progress are delineated in the publication “Working Group on Gender and Mathematics: Gathering Reflective Voices” (2002). This work serves multiple purposes for me. It is, as stated, part of my support for continued inquiry into women’s experiences with mathematics. However, it is also a project that serves as a transition for me and my own inquiry focus, a focus that now includes sociocultural elements connected to gender, such as race, class, and sexuality. This publication allows me a kind of closure, an opportunity to reflect upon my work and move forward.
Scholarship Recognition
My accomplishments in research center on awards, funding, and leadership. In 2000, I was awarded a Probationary Faculty Research Award for the School of Teaching and Learning, an OSU University Seed Grant, and an OSU Newark Research and Scholarly Activity Grant. I also have secured 5 years of funding to support my leadership of the Gender and Mathematics Working Group of the Psychology of Mathematics Education organization. The leadership of the Gender and Mathematics Working Group is significant in terms of accomplishment because of the focus of the group. As described above, the group’s agenda at this time focuses on the development of a monograph on women’s voice in mathematics. Although others have applied research on epistemological voice to women’s experience of mathematics, I have taken this application further. In my book chapter, “Developing a relationship with mathematics: Women reflecting on the adolescent years” (2001) I named and defined the concept of “mathematical voice” and thus introduced a theoretical frame for studying women’s experience with mathematics. I bring this focus to my work with the gender and Mathematics Working Group.
Toward the Future
I continue to study the epistemological, pedagogical, and sociocultural elements that contribute to the development of mathematical voice, agency and social justice. I now move to inquire more comprehensively around the social constructs and the processes of developing mathematical voice, agency and social justice; and to bring this work to bear on inquiry with teachers in preservice and inservice education who allow, or do not allow, the development mathematical voice and agency in their own pedagogy, and how a social justice agenda manifests itself in the mathematics pedagogy in my and other teachers’ classrooms. As mentioned earlier in this statement, that work is now being developed in the context of the Mathematics Coaching Program (MCP).