Mathematics teachers’ self-evaluation of equity-oriented teaching practices

Abstract

Equity in mathematics education has evolved beyond ensuring equal access to learning opportunities to encompass fairness in addressing students’ diverse educational, social, cultural, and linguistic needs. Within the context of elementary mathematics education in Saudi Arabia, this study investigated teachers’ self-reported instructional practices through a multidimensional lens of mathematical equity. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was employed, with quantitative data collected through an online questionnaire from 131 elementary mathematics teachers and qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with 12 purposively selected participants. The quantitative and qualitative datasets were analyzed independently and subsequently brought together at the interpretation stage. The findings indicated that teachers generally evaluated their equity-oriented practices positively. Cultural and linguistic equity received the highest mean score, whereas equity in access to instructional resources received the lowest, although all five dimensions were rated at a high level. The qualitative findings illustrated teachers’ reported use of diverse resources and instructional, participation, assessment, and language-support practices, while also showing areas that received less explicit attention, such as systematic monitoring of instructional bias and review of cultural or linguistic bias in educational resources. The findings contribute context-specific evidence on teachers’ self-evaluations of equity-oriented mathematics teaching and highlight the need for further research using classroom observations and students’ perspectives.