Lesson study with caregivers as a resource for a culturally sustaining mathematics pedagogy for multilingual learners

Abstract Research has affirmed the importance of asset-based family partnerships, yet it does not often recognize the complementary roles of multilingual caregivers and teachers to enact culturally sustaining mathematics education. Our theoretical framework brings together the perspectives and tools of positioning theory and community solidarity through a lesson study that integrated the participation of caregivers. Our research questions explore ways that caregivers, teachers, and university facilitators participate in and position each other and themselves for learning throughout a mathematics lesson study and how hierarchical positions are disrupted. Using positioning theory, we analyzed the discourse from a year-long study group with teachers and caregivers of multilingual children ages 7–10 in the USA. Our findings describe four events that underscore moment-to-moment interactions between participants in which they situate themselves and their work within racialized storylines and disrupt typical power hierarchies that might have emerged. We find several ways the principles of community solidarity, which undergirded our lesson study model, created new opportunities for educators and multilingual caregivers to be positioned as witnesses, advocates, partners, and co-designers to work towards culturally sustaining mathematics education for multilingual students. We conclude with implications for future mathematics education partnerships to co-construct mathematics learning opportunities that affirm multilingual students’ cultural and linguistic identities.