Gap-gazing to me is also a new term but considering the fact that i am new in Canada i will be coming across lots of terms in maths and in various fields of education that i think i will not be familiar with, and i am hoping that Ms. Indigo and all experience teachers in my class will help me understand the education system of Ontario . Last year i was watching CNN and i found out that in year 2009 out of every 25 student 19 students are asians who beat americans in maths in SATs and GMATs. I am not sure about all the factors that are creating this achievement gap but after reading this article i can see Rochelle Guiterrez preoccupation with gender, race etc seems to suggest that the full set of factors that actually create the learning gap might not have been fully brought to light or might be wrongly attributed to race, gender etc. A case in point could be the impact of cultural differences across different nations that affects math learning. Chinese parents, for example, have a much stronger desire to see their children succeed in life and subject them to a much more rigorous learning process. Many chinese children attend chinese schools on weekends where they are exposed to a much advanced level of mathematics. This extra practice and exposure to advanced mathematics makes it so much easier for them to excel in the weekday schools. Another example is the lower education levels of latino and black parents and therefore their lack of awareness and inability to help out their children as compared to white parents. Hence further fact finding and a more nuanced analysis would definitely bring factors such as these to the fore and allow a more targeted and effective problem solving.
I agree with dimensions of studies on equity, however just like Diane i am not sure i clearly understand “power” as a fourth dimension.
As we will see, there are many factors that can influence what students learn and how they perform on tests like the ones you mention.
ReplyDeleteI think it's also important to recognize that when we look at achievement gaps, there is a tendency to treat one group as the norm by which others are mentioned - so above, white parents and children are treated as the norm, with other families either more, or less, prepared for school, committed to school, etc. We need to consider various social groups on their own terms, and we need to look at factors inside schools to explain these gaps - or, Gutierrez would argue, not think too much about the gaps at all and just focus on excellence for all students.