Bethinking ourselves anew: on mathematics socialization and contributory injustice, a reappraisal

A quarter-century after Mathematics Success and Failure among African American Youth, the field of mathematics education has taken from Danny Martin’s framework the concept of mathematics identity while leaving undeveloped the theory of mathematics socialization that gave identity its analytical power. The field made progress on reducible epistemic oppression through curricular and pedagogical reform. Mathematics socialization demanded something else: recognition that the epistemological system itself was producing the inequalities the field documented––an irreducible demand the field’s epistemological resilience was organized against receiving. Du Bois diagnosed this as the fate of the first gift: not its theft but its caricature, a people’s most demanding offering, given whole, received only in the parts a hostile audience could absorb. Dotson names the structural version of that failure contributory injustice. This essay traces the radicalization of Martin’s argument toward antiblackness and asks what bethinking ourselves anew requires of the field now.