Mathematics classrooms are increasingly becoming sites for investigating social (in)justice, but research on teaching mathematics for social justice remains limited to individual case studies. This article reports on a metasynthesis of 35 qualitative reports of social justice mathematics enactments in diverse classroom contexts. Critical race theory serves as a guiding framework for analyzing possibilities and limitations of these enactments to address racial inequities in mathematics education. Findings from this metasynthesis reveal that addressing race in social justice mathematics explorations provided opportunities for centering the voices of people of Color and critiquing liberal views that camouflage subtle forms of racism and involved substantial and authentic mathematical work. Promising practices and implications for future research are identified based on this synthesis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools abruptly transitioned to emergency remote instruction. Consequently, expectations for parental involvement in school mathematics rose to unprecedented levels. We sought to understand the experiences of parents to reimagine possibilities for engagement in mathematics during and beyond the pandemic. Leveraging data from tweets using #mathathome and survey responses from parents, we identified who supported continued mathematics learning at home and explored the nature of the mathematics taught there. We found that Twitter and survey data sources described two largely distinct groups of those supporting parents to continue mathematics education at home, but similar findings emerged from analyses of each data source, suggesting that themes were common among different groups. Namely, we saw a commitment to continued mathematics learning and engagement with a range of mathematics topics. These topics mostly focused on elementary-level content, especially counting, through everyday activities/objects and mathematical sense-making. Most parents used resources provided by the school alongside resources they identified and provided on their own. School responses to emergency remote instruction were mostly asynchronous, and parents expressed a need for more opportunities to interact directly with their children’s teachers. We discuss what the mathematics education community might learn from these experiences to support parental engagement during and beyond periods of remote emergency instruction.

Using mathematics as a tool to interrogate (in)justice and take action toward a more socially just world in PreK–12 mathematics shows promise for disrupting marginalization of Black and Brown students. Teachers, however, work within broader systems, structures, and discourses that shape their decisions and actions. Consequently, they likely feel imbalance, and attempts to manage tensions may inadvertently perpetuate whiteness – the ideologies that value the white racial group over others. To explore this phenomenon, we asked: How do white teachers learning to teach mathematics for social justice disrupt whiteness in mathematics education, and how do they perpetuate whiteness? We examined two newly practicing teachers’ social justice mathematics lesson planning, enactment, and reflection through a framework for the operation of whiteness in mathematics education. Findings provide insights into the perpetuation and disruption of whiteness in the institutional and labor dimensions of mathematics teaching and learning as teachers sought to balance mathematics and social justice goals and connect to Black and Brown students’ experiences. We discuss implications for the continued learning of social justice teaching and the development of resources to support disruption of whiteness in mathematics education.