Statistics For Social Justice

In Statistics for Social Justice: A Structural Perspective, van de Sande and Byvelds argue that social work research, including statistics, should be taught from a structural perspective and should follow anti-oppressive principles, which view the problems experienced by people as rooted in the social, political and economic structures of society.

Despite the growing urgency for Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the field of education, the "how" of this theoretical framework can often be overlooked. This exciting edited collection presents different methods and methodologies, which are used by education researchers to investigate critical issues of racial justice in education from a CRT perspective. Featuring scholars from a range of disciplines, the chapters showcase how various researchers synthesize different methods—including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, and historical and archival research—with CRT to explore issues of equity and access in the field of education. Scholars discuss their current research approaches using CRT and present new models of conducting research within a CRT framework, offering a valuable contribution to ongoing methodological debates. Researchers across different levels of expertise will find the articulations of CRT and methods insightful and compelling.

Mathematics for Social Justice: Focusing on Quantitative Reasoning and Statistics offers a collection of resources for mathematics faculty interested in incorporating questions of social justice into their classrooms. The book comprises seventeen classroom-tested modules featuring ready-to-use activities and investigations for college mathematics and statistics courses. The modules empower students to study issues of social justice and to see the power and limitations of mathematics in real-world contexts of deep concern. The primary focus is on classroom activities where students can ask their own questions, find and analyze real data, apply mathematical ideas themselves, and draw their own conclusions. Module topics in the book focus on technical content that could support courses in quantitative reasoning or introductory statistics. Social themes include electoral issues, environmental justice, equity/inequity, human rights, and racial justice, including topics such as gentrification, partisan gerrymandering, policing, and more. The volume editors are leaders of the national movement to include social justice material in mathematics teaching and jointly edited the earlier AMS-MAA volume, Mathematics for Social Justice: Resources for the College Classroom. Gizem Karaali is Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College. She is a past chair of the Special Interest Group of the MAA on Quantitative Literacy (SIGMAA-QL). She is one of the founding editors of The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, senior editor of Numeracy, and an associate editor for The Mathematical Intelligencer; she also serves on the editorial board of the MAA's Classroom Resource Materials series. Lily Khadjavi is Professor and Chair of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University and is a past co-chair of the Infinite Possibilities Conference. In 2020 she was appointed by the California State Attorney General to the Racial and Identity Profiling Act Board, which works with the California Department of Justice. She currently serves on the editorial board of the MAA's Spectrum series and the Human Resources Advisory Committee for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley.

Mathematics instructors are always looking for ways to engage students in meaningful and authentic tasks that utilize mathematics. At the same time, it is crucial for a democratic society to have a citizenry who can critically discriminate between “fake” and reliable news reports involving numeracy and apply numerical literacy to local and global issues. This book contains examples of topics linking math and social justice and addresses both goals. There is a broad range of mathematics used, including statistical methods, modeling, calculus, and basic algebra. The range of social issues is also diverse, including racial injustice, mass incarceration, income inequality, and environmental justice. There are lesson plans appropriate in many contexts: service-learning courses, quantitative literacy/reasoning courses, introductory courses, and classes for math majors. What makes this book unique and timely is that the most previous curricula linking math and social justice have been treated from a humanist perspective. This book is written by mathematicians, for mathematics students. Admittedly, it can be intimidating for instructors trained in quantitative methods to venture into the arena of social dilemmas. This volume provides encouragement, support, and a treasure trove of ideas to get you started. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, PRIMUS: Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies.

Mathematics for Social Justice offers a collection of resources for mathematics faculty interested in incorporating questions of social justice into their classrooms. The book begins with a series of essays from instructors experienced in integrating social justice themes into their pedagogy; these essays contain political and pedagogical motivations as well as nuts-and-bolts teaching advice. The heart of the book is a collection of fourteen classroom-tested modules featuring ready-to-use activities and investigations for the college mathematics classroom. The mathematical tools and techniques used are relevant to a wide variety of courses including college algebra, math for the liberal arts, calculus, differential equations, discrete mathematics, geometry, financial mathematics, and combinatorics. The social justice themes include human trafficking, income inequality, environmental justice, gerrymandering, voting methods, and access to education. The volume editors are leaders of the national movement to include social justice material into mathematics teaching. Gizem Karaali is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College. She is one of the founding editors of The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, and an associate editor for The Mathematical Intelligencer and Numeracy ; she also serves on the editorial board of the MAA's Carus Mathematical Monographs. Lily Khadjavi is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University and is a past co-chair of the Infinite Possibilities Conference. She has served on the boards of Building Diversity in Science, the Barbara Jordan-Bayard Rustin Coalition, and the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus.

Understanding statistical concepts is essential for social work professionals. It is key to understanding research and reaching evidence-based decisions in your own practice—but that is only the beginning. If you understand statistics, you can determine the best interventions for your clients. You can use new tools to monitor and evaluate the progress of your client or team. You can recognize biased systems masked by complex models and the appearance of scientific neutrality. For social workers, statistics are not just math, they are a critical practice tool. This concise and approachable introduction to statistics limits its coverage to the concepts most relevant to social workers. Statistics in Social Work guides students through concepts and procedures from descriptive statistics and correlation to hypothesis testing and inferential statistics. Besides presenting key concepts, it focuses on real-world examples that students will encounter in a social work practice. Using concrete illustrations from a variety of potential concentrations and populations, Amy Batchelor creates clear connections between theory and practice—and demonstrates the important contributions statistics can make to evidence-based and rigorous social work practice.

"Most social research texts are written from an empiricist and positivist perspective, emphasizing the scientific method and the value of objectivity in research. While acknowledging that certain aspects of the scientific method should be preserved, Adje van de Sande and Karen Schwartz argue that social research should not and cannot be value-free. Researchers committed to social justice and social change need to support that commitment. Research for Social Justice examines how the structural inequality perspective and anti-oppressive principles--perspectives that view the problems experienced by people as rooted in the social, political and economic structures of society--provide this support. Intended for students who are interested in exploring the social justice approach to their community-based research. Research for Social Justice is also of benefit to research such as program evaluations and needs assessments. The second edition of the book updates and revises examples of research, includes a substantially revised chapter on Indigenous approaches to research and contains a chapter-by-chapter description of developing student projects in a research course and an example of a student-led, community-based research project."--

The issue of social justice has been brought to the forefront of society within recent years, and educational institutions have become an integral part of this critical conversation. Classroom settings are expected to take part in the promotion of inclusive practices and the development of culturally proficient environments that provide equal and effective education for all students regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status, and disability, as well as from all walks of life. The scope of these practices finds itself rooted in curriculum, teacher preparation, teaching practices, and pedagogy in all educational environments. Diversity within school administrations, teachers, and students has led to the need for socially just practices to become the norm for the progression and advancement of education worldwide. In a modern society that is fighting for the equal treatment of all individuals, the classroom must be a topic of discussion as it stands as a root of the problem and can be a major step in the right direction moving forward. Research Anthology on Instilling Social Justice in the Classroom is a comprehensive reference source that provides an overview of social justice and its role in education ranging from concepts and theories for inclusivity, tools, and technologies for teaching diverse students, and the implications of having culturally competent and diverse classrooms. The chapters dive deeper into the curriculum choices, teaching theories, and student experience as teachers strive to instill social justice learning methods within their classrooms. These topics span a wide range of subjects from STEM to language arts, and within all types of climates: PK-12, higher education, online or in-person instruction, and classrooms across the globe. This book is ideal for in-service and preservice teachers, administrators, social justice researchers, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in how social justice is currently being implemented in all aspects of education.