Mahtab Nazemi

Dr. Nazemi is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction and mathematics education from the University of Washington, where she also completed certification as a mixed-methods researcher. Her current research employs critical race and anti-racist feminist theories in order to understand neoliberalism and institutional racism in K-16 educational institutions and settings. Dr. Nazemi started her teaching career as a high school mathematics and french immersion teacher. In addition to consulting and coaching work, she has taught K-12 teacher education and methods courses at McGill University, Antioch University, the University of Washington, and now at Thompson Rivers University. Since completing her MA at McGill University in educational studies and gender studies in 2011, Dr. Nazemi has been involved with the Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Setting for Teaching (MIST) research project, based out of Vanderbilt University.

Current Work:

There is a growing body of scholarship in mathematics education that has attended to the salience of race in mathematics teaching and learning. However, in the context of secondary classrooms with equity-oriented instruction, we know little about race and processes of racialization, and even less from the perspectives of students of color and in their own words about their identities and experiences. The purpose of Dr. Nazemi's current research is to better understand the ways in which the mathematical experiences of female students of color are racialized and shaped by neoliberalism, even in the context of a classroom that reflects equity-oriented instruction and is organized to support students' academic identities and mathematics learning. She draws on sociocultural theory of learning and critical race theory to center and privilege the racialized narratives of students of color through qualitative interviews with focal students, interviews with teachers, and classroom observations.

Dr. Nazemi's preliminary findings indicate that even with high-quality implementation of equity-oriented instruction by a race conscious teacher, mathematics classrooms continue to be a site in which racialized discourse persists regarding how students are positioned as doers of mathematics in relation to how they racially identify or are identified by others. At the same time, focal students' discourses regarding mathematics teaching and learning often support, but at times proved to be resisting, prevailing race-neutral and meritocratic ideologies. More generally, whether they followed or resisted dominant discourses, Dr. Nazemi found that students' narratives were always racialized and were often meritocratic.
Her research findings confirm the findings of other scholars that mathematics learning contexts are racialized spaces and race matters in how teachers and students relate to one another, to how teachers teach mathematics and to how students learn. In addition, Dr. Nazemi's research highlights the importance of attending to the impact of neoliberalism on mathematics teaching and learning in relation to race. Implications include that teachers, whether or not they are purveyors of equity-driven teaching initiatives, must take into consideration not only that their students are subject to, but also that their classrooms are not immune to, processes of racialization and the larger neoliberal context in which they are situated. This further suggests that teacher educators and professional development leaders need to support teachers to inquire into the salience of race, racism and neoliberalism for mathematics teaching and learning, and to engage with students in conversations around race and racism, including about assumptions regarding ability.

Research Area Keyword(s):

Mathematics education; language and literacy across content areas; teacher education; critical race theory; sociocultural theories of identity and learning