THE BLACK WOMAN'S TOOLKIT: STORIES OF PERSISTENCE IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS COURSES

Black women are underrepresented in secondary math education, but their presence is critical for young black girls who dream of STEM careers. Some researchers believe that the number of Black women pursuing secondary math licensure can be increased through improved recruitment strategies, while others focus on causes of leakage in the education pipeline. This study sought to discover types of capital that Black women, who are preservice Mathematics teachers (PSMTs), relied on to persist towards the completion of their teacher preparation programs.
Framed using Critical Race Feminism and Black Feminism, this study employed Counternarrative Inquiry to discover the capital that the five PSMTs credited for their ability to stay the course. The findings indicate that, while PSMTs might use the same capital, they use it in a variety of ways and for different purposes.
A key implication of the findings from this study is that, if undergraduate math educators can mitigate or eliminate the conditions within the math classroom that triggers the use of many of the capitals in this study, Black women who are PSMTs may be able to divert their energies to developing robust mathematical identities.