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Makale Özeti:
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Educational systems throughout the world serve students from diverse populations. Often students from
minority populations (i.e. racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic) face unique challenges when learning in
contexts based on the cultural traditions and learning theories of the majority population. These challenges
often leave minority populations labeled as incompetent, unmotivated, and cognitively deficit. In the United
States, African American female students are among minority populations who are often positioned as deficit
when compared to the majority White population. This study investigates middle school African American
female perceptions of themselves as learners and students’ knowledge of the meaning of ratio, proportionality,
and how to apply and explain their application of proportionality concepts by examining written problem
solving strategies over a three-year period. Students’ responses are analyzed according to the strategies they
used to reach their final solution. The categories of strategies include no-response, guess and check, additive
build up with and without a pictorial representation, and multiplicative. The majority of students in this study
86.5%, 69.2%, and 68.6% did not attempt or demonstrated no understanding in year one, two, and three
respectively. Additionally, participants reported positive dispositions about themselves as mathematics learners.
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