Math Teachers’ Beliefs about Educating Latinx Emergent Bilinguals with Learning Disabilities

Latinx students with learning disabilities (LD) and Latinx emergent bilinguals with LD are often portrayed through deficit perspectives, ignoring students' strengths and contributions to collective math learning. Teachers' beliefs about students and their self-efficacy can influence their pedagogical decisions. For teachers of Latinx students with LD and emergent bilinguals, deficit beliefs can lead to lowered quality math teaching. The purpose of this study is to understand the beliefs and perceptions of general education (GE) middle school math teachers who teach math to Latinx students with LD and Latinx emergent bilinguals with LD. Sixty GE middle school math teachers participated in the study by completing a survey to gather general trends on teachers' beliefs about teaching math to these groups of Latinx students, including information about how they define math ability and their instructional practices, and their perceived sense of self-efficacy. From the set of 60 teachers, 15 were interviewed to gather more detailed data. Quantitative data from the survey were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data from both data sources were analyzed through thematic analysis. Integration of both data types was done by creating a side-by-side joint display. Four major findings emerged: (a) teachers defined math ability as influenced by contextual factors and capable of shifting over time while simultaneously conceptualized as fixed and minimally impacted by student agency; (b) teachers generally viewed the inclusion of students in the GE math classroom positively, believed students were capable of math success, but also believed students lacked knowledge and desire to succeed; teachers tapped into ideas of math teaching and learning, race, student identity, their experiences and local school context when explaining their beliefs; (c) teaching practices reported mirrored teachers' beliefs with teachers mentioning practices that included those that assisted grade-level learning and participation, assisted in assignment completion, but also mentioned practices that limited meaningful inclusion and learning; and (d) most teachers felt effective teaching these groups of Latinx students, while some teachers did report concerns of their effectiveness and noted both teacher and system-level characteristics as impacting their sense of effectiveness. As the population of Latinx students continues to grow in schools, the need to understand teachers' beliefs about historically marginalized students and how prepared they feel about teaching this population becomes pressing. This study adds to the literature on math education of students with intersectional marginalized identities, stressing the important role teachers play in affording opportunities to learn and the formation of students' math identity. Teachers' responses consistently evoked prevailing sociohistorical discourses of race and ability. The findings provide implications for future research and practice in expanding GE middle school math teachers' ideas about math ability and beliefs.