Connecting Mathematics and Social and Political Issues in Mathematics Content Courses for Teachers: Examining Income Distribution

To allow prospective teachers to see mathematics as a useful tool to make sense of the world we redesigned a university mathematics content course for prospective elementary school teachers in the context of exploring income distribution in the United States. This allowed the prospective teachers to learn mathematics in a meaningful context and simultaneously learn about the world around them. We show that prospective teachers learned mathematics, learned about the world, and also felt that social and political contexts made the mathematics more real and engaging. Thus math tasks situated in social and political contexts can support mathematics learning while also showing that mathematics is a powerful tool to make sense of the world.