Niral Shah

Artificial intelligence (AI)—like many technologies before—comes with hope and worry about its implications for education. In this essay, using generative AI as a case, we appraise the ideological field of positions that stakeholders take in relation to educational technology overall. Drawing on science and technology studies, our analysis shows that education’s default position is optimism, even among those genuinely “critical” of technology’s capacity to amplify inequity. Refusal is not widely regarded as a legitimate response to educational technology. We argue, in contrast, that given the potential for scalable harm from unproven technologies like generative AI, the most rational position with new technology is robust caution with a readiness to refuse. We conclude by detailing three forms of refusal for educational stakeholders to consider: curricular, bureaucratic, and administrative.

Equity-focused coaching—coaching that centers racism, patriarchy, and other oppressive systems—is a promising approach to supporting teachers in expanding learning opportunities for minoritized students. However, despite its known challenges, details of equity-focused coaching remain underexamined. This article presents an analysis of 27 equity-focused coaching sessions with ten secondary physics teachers, which incorporated classroom videos and EQUIP analytics. The analysis applied theoretical constructs from conversation analysis: attribution of responsibility and attribution of knowledge in interaction. Findings show that whereas coaches tended to explain inequitable patterns in terms of broader social patterns, teachers tended to base their interpretations on the perceived deficits of minoritized students. The turn-by-turn analysis illustrates fine-grained details of discursive moves coaches leveraged to successfully facilitate shifts in teachers’ interpretative orientations. These findings highlight that steering coaching conversations toward equity-focused interpretations is an essential element of equity-focused coaching, and such work comprises subtle and skillful discursive moves.

We introduce a teacher learning practice called EQUIP-ing, which aims to foster sociopolitical noticing by leveraging EQUIP, an equity-oriented classroom observation tool. We detail our iterations of EQUIP-ing to a field-based Number Talk experience in a secondary mathematics methods course with 25 White prospective teachers (PTs). We offer empirical accounts of how EQUIP-ing empowered PTs to connect their teaching practices with racialized and gendered patterns of student participation; as a result, PTs began to reconsider taken-for-granted practices. However, we also found that PTs demonstrated potentially detrimental ways of attributing marginalizing patterns to minoritized students without actionable plans to redress the inequity. We conclude by inviting mathematics teacher educators to apply EQUIP-ing while emphasizing purposeful support for asset-based noticing.

Meaningful change towards antiracist practices take time. There are no quick fixes.Quick workshops on implicit bias and microaggressions rarely lead to lasting changes in teaching practices.Equity ...

This article investigates the implementation of inquiry-oriented instruction in 20 undergraduate mathematics classrooms. In contrast to conventional wisdom that active learning is good for all students, we found gendered performance differences between women and men in the inquiry classes that were not present in a noninquiry comparison sample. Through a secondary analysis of classroom videos, we linked these performance inequities to differences in women’s participation rates across classes. Thus, we provide empirical evidence that simply implementing active learning is insufficient, and that the nature of inquiry-oriented classrooms is highly consequential for improving gender equity in mathematics.

Computing is being integrated into a range of STEM disciplines. Still, computing remains inaccessible to many minoritized groups, especially girls and certain people of color. In this mixed methods...

Race-focused teacher education has centered on changing preservice teachers’ racial beliefs and attitudes. In this article, we build on this work by exploring how preservice teachers identify and address issues of race and racism in the everyday work of teaching and learning. To conceptualize these processes, we propose the theoretical framework of “racial noticing,” which extends the literature on teacher noticing to the consideration of racial phenomena. Using a comparative case study design, this study focuses on three elementary preservice teachers (two identifying as White, one identifying as Black) with antiracist inclinations. Findings show that they demonstrated generally strong competencies with racial noticing during a mathematics methods course, but that contextual factors influenced shifts in racial noticing during student teaching. We argue that race-focused teacher education centered on noticing the impact of race and racism in learning settings can make the practice of antiracist teaching more tractable for preservice teachers.

Research on collaborative learning has focused on its potential to foster successful problem solving. Less attention, though, has been given to issues of equity. In this article, we investigate how inequity can become amplified and attenuated within collaborative learning through small interactional moves that accumulate to produce broader patterns of equity or inequity. Our theoretical perspective utilizes Boaler’s notion of relational equity and introduces what we term participatory equity. Research was conducted in a computer science course co-taught by the authors and taken by upper-elementary students. Data sources include audio recordings of students’ collaborative interactions, ethnographic field notes, student work, and student surveys. This article focuses on a single student, Jason, and his dyadic interactions, and builds upon our previous analyses of his interactions with four higher-performing partners. Findings reveal how the interplay between classroom structures and student enactments shaped two types of inequity during collaborative learning. We conclude by discussing implications for theorizing and analyzing equity and inequity, as well as pedagogical considerations for structuring collaborative learning to attenuate inequity.