AN ELABORATION ON MASTER NARRATIVES IN MATHEMATICS AND HOW UNDERGRADUATES RELATE TO COUNTERNARRATIVES.

Because the master narratives about mathematics in the US often play an exclusionary role in students’ educational experiences, educators have sought to integrate counternarratives into instruction that might disrupt these effects. As part of a larger project to develop a research-informed curriculum for undergraduate introduction to proof courses, we gathered author stories from a diverse set of mathematicians for students to read and reflect upon. To study student responses to these author stories, we synthesized a framework of the master narrative of mathematics in the US and identified how the author stories countered elements of this narrative. We then analyzed 80 student reflections from one introduction to proof course to identify whether and how students either endorsed or countered the elements of the master narrative. Our findings point to a positive, yet modest capacity for these stories as counternarratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]