Storylines in public news media about mathematics education and minoritized students

Abstract

Public media both reflects and shapes societal perceptions and attitudes. Teachers and others around students in mathematics classrooms have expectations for the students, projected with what appears in these media. We are most concerned about the expectations placed on students who are identified with minoritized groups—particularly students who are Indigenous or migrated to Norway. We investigate how minoritized group contexts and mathematics education appear together in Norwegian news media texts. Our analysis uses the notion of storylines to describe the expectations about minoritized groups that news media project. We found seven entangled storylines: “the majority language and culture are keys to learning and knowing mathematics,” “mathematics is language- and cultureneutral,” “minoritized groups’ mathematics achievements are linked to culture and gender,” “extraordinary measures are needed to teach students from minoritized groups mathematics,” “students from minoritized groups underachieve,” “students from minoritized groups put in extraordinary effort and time to learn mathematics,” and “minoritized mathematics students are motivated by gratitude.”