RUME 28
2026
Alexandria, Virginia
Teaching Logic for Social Justice: How Students’ Activity Identifying Mathematical Assumptions Can Support Their Reasoning Around Prisons and Abolition
Page: 677
Mathematics and mathematics education are implicated in broader societal inequities. These inequities can manifest in racialized and gendered classroom experiences and are perpetuated by the very practices students are encouraged to employ. While some scholarship in undergraduate mathematics describes possibilities for using mathematics toward social justice, this area has been largely limited to algebra, statistics and calculus, leaving proof unexplored despite its critical role within K-16 mathematics. The aim of this study was to develop an instructional theory for how students can productively discuss and debate sociopolitical issues through practicing competencies from proof-based mathematics. I report data from the first cycle of a constructivist teaching experiment with two undergraduates designed to help them use logic to support their sensemaking about prisons and abolition. Ultimately, students’ successful activity attending to definitions and identifying assumptions in a geometric context supported their ability to identify commonplace assumptions about prisons.