Looking critically at teachers' attention to equity in their classrooms

Abstract

Ensuring that all students are afforded high quality education is a task given to teachers under standards documents provided by professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Falling under the generic title of equity, paying attention to the achievement of minority students—especially those historically underserved by schools—is required for good teaching. However, teachers are often left to define what equity means. In this study, we investigated how two National Board Certified Teachers defined equity and how they attended to it in their classrooms. We further explored how issues of race and socioeconomic status interfered with their attempts at providing equitable classroom experiences for all students.