Primary school teachers tackling social justice issues through teaching mathematics

In this paper we present further findings from the Primary Maths & Social Justice research project. The aim of the project was to explore how primary school teachers can tackle social justice issues through teaching mathematics. We employed a participatory action research methodology, which is a collaborative approach that recognises the essential contributions of both academic researchers (with their previous experience of research) and teacher researchers (with their in-depth knowledge of learners) to the research process. We established a research team that held a series of meetings in which we planned, taught and evaluated a series of research lessons. We carried out a thematic analysis of the data collected from these meetings and follow-up interviews. We discuss here three themes that emerged from this analysis: students’ increasing levels of ‘socio-mathematical agency’; teachers’ reflections on enacting change through collaboration; and the impact on teachers’ practice of their developing relationships with mathematics.