Historicizing Mathematics and Mathematizing Social Studies for Social Justice: A Call for Integration

Researchers and theorists in education have offered persuasive arguments and evidence documenting the need for, and benefits of, education for social justice. Despite these efforts the intersection of social justice with interdisciplinary curricular designs remains underexplored. This article argues that social justice education is enriched through interdisciplinary curricula, in that it holds the potential for students to develop deeper conceptions of social justice and experience deeper learning outcomes related to content knowledge across subject matter areas. Central to this argument is the notion that situating disciplinary relationships explicitly within social justice perspectives encourages an emphasis on broader and richer sociopolitical consciousness among learners. We draw on historical and contemporary narratives to position social justice inmathematics and social studies education. As researchers in these two fields, we envision greater possibilities for the advancement of knowledge, and we envision learning from inequalities and resisting oppression by nurturing deeper, more explicit connections between mathematics and social studies. We conclude this article with three overviews of learning segments as potential representations of interdisciplinary mathematics-social studies for social justice work in secondary school contexts.