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Rochelle Gutiérrez

Professor

Biography

Dr. Gutierrez' scholarship focuses on issues of identity and power in mathematics education, paying particular attention to how race, class, and language affect teaching and learning. Through in-depth analyses of effective teaching/learning communities and longitudinal studies of developing and practicing teachers, her work challenges deficit views of students who are Latinx, Black, and Indigenous and suggests that mathematics teachers need to be prepared with much more than just content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, or knowledge of diverse students if they are going to be successful. They need political knowledge. Her current research projects focus upon: developing in pre-service teachers the knowledge and disposition to teach powerful mathematics to urban students; the roles of uncertainty, tensions, and "Nepantla" in teaching; and the political knowledge (and forms of creative insubordination) that mathematics teachers need to effectively "rehumanize" mathematics in an era of high-stakes education. She also builds upon Indigenous principles and has argued for a new form of mathematics where humans are no long centered. This form of mathematics is referred to as living mathematx.

Research Interests

Dr. Gutierrez' scholarship focuses on issues of identity and power in mathematics education, paying particular attention to how race, class, and language affect teaching and learning. Through in-depth analyses of effective teaching/learning communities and longitudinal studies of developing and practicing teachers, her work challenges deficit views of students who are Latinx, Black, and Indigenous and suggests that mathematics teachers need to be prepared with much more than just content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, or knowledge of diverse students if they are going to be successful. They need political knowledge. Her current research projects focus upon: developing in pre-service teachers the knowledge and disposition to teach powerful mathematics to urban students; the roles of uncertainty, tensions, and "Nepantla" in teaching; and the political knowledge (and forms of creative insubordination) that mathematics teachers need to effectively "rehumanize" mathematics in an era of high-stakes education. She also builds upon Indigenous principles and has argued for a new form of mathematics where humans are no long centered. This form of mathematics is referred to as living mathematx.

Courses Taught

I teach secondary mathematics methods courses to students who are undergraduates in mathematics and seeking a minor in Education. I also teach a large undergraduate seminar on Social Justice, Schooling, and Society that is open to students from all disciplines, not just education.
For practicing teachers and graduate students in the College of Education, I teach courses in sociopolitical perspectives on mathematics and science education, urban education, and the Mathematics Science and Engineering Pro-seminar that prepares graduate students to write research articles and understand the publishing process.

Additional Campus Affiliations

Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Professor, Latina/Latino Studies
Professor, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

Recent Publications

Gutiérrez, R., Myers, M., & Kokka, K. (2023). The stories we tell: Why unpacking narratives of mathematics is important for teacher conocimiento. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 70, Article 101025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2022.101025

Myers, M., Kokka, K., & Gutiérrez, R. (2023). Maintaining Tensions: Braiding as an Analogy for Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Political Work. Education Sciences, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13111100

Bosch, N., Chan, A. S., Davis, J. L., Gutiérrez, R., He, J. R., Karahalios, K., Loui, M. C., Mendenhall, R., Sanfilippo, M. R., Tong, H., Varshney, L. R., & Wang, Y. (2022). Artificial Intelligence and Social Responsibility: The Roles of the University. Computing Research Association. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116374

Gutiérrez, R. (2022). A Spiritual Turn: Toward Desire-Based Research and Indigenous Futurity in Mathematics Education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 53(5), 379-388. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc-2022-0005

Goffney, I., Gutiérrez, R., & Boston, M. (Eds.) (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. (Annual Perspectives in Mathematics Education; Vol. 2018). National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

View all publications on Illinois Experts