Social Justice Activism and the Question of Politics: The Case of the Struggle over Mathematics Teaching

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the fight for social justice has increasingly been couched in terms of combating what is referred to as the systemic oppression of marginalized group identities, typically defined in terms of gender, sexuality, religion, or race. According to left-wing social justice educators, these identities are victimized by the system. While there is no lack of studies of identity politics, the understanding of what kind of politics, if at all, this social justice activism entails remains deficient. Influential social theory scholars contend that identity politics is individualizing and depoliticizing because it fails to engage with structural inequalities and economic inequalities between social classes. While we agree that social justice activism clearly deviates from the class-based politics of modern/industrial society, we argue, nonetheless, that it is political by its very nature and that it, amongst other things, politicizes education. Based on the case of recent initiatives to rid mathematics education of “white supremacy, the article suggests that social justice educators engage in decidedly politicizing actions based on a matrix of oppressor and oppressed that is designed to foster collective mobilization along antagonistic friend/enemy lines. The article’s overall contribution rests on a novel and more adequate understanding of the political implications of social justice activism.