Educ Stud Math

DOI 10.1007/s10649-017-9764-5

Problematizing statistical literacy: An intersection

of critical and statistical literacies

Travis Weiland 1

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017

Abstract In this paper, I problematize traditional notions of statistical literacy by juxtaposing

it with critical literacy. At the school level statistical literacy is vitally important for students
who are preparing to become citizens in modern societies that are increasingly shaped and
driven by data based arguments. The teaching of statistics, which is the science of data, is
firmly rooted in the mathematics curriculum at the K-12 school level, making statistical
literacy a crucial goal in mathematics education. I discuss key ideas from critical literacy in
formal school contexts, especially within the field of mathematics education and intersect
those with key ideas from statistical literacy to create a critical statistical literacy framework.
Potential contributions of and barriers to the implementation of a critical statistical literacy are
discussed.

Keywords Statistical literacy . Critical literacy . Critical mathematics education . Statistics

education . Citizenship

1 Introduction

In modern society, which is drenched in data (Steen, 2001), individuals should be statistically
literate (Gal, 2002). Statistical literacy is crucial for individuals to be able to read, evaluate, and
make informed decisions based on the statistical arguments they are bombarded with on a
daily basis. There has been an explosion of data in every facet of life including medicine,
economics, education, and public opinion, just to name a few (Ben-Zvi & Garfield, 2008). As
a result of this explosion, as Franklin et al. (2007) state, Bevery high school graduate should be
able to use sound statistical reasoning to intelligently cope with the requirements of
citizenship^ (p. 1).

* Travis Weiland
tweiland@umassd.edu

1
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA, USA
 Weiland T.

At the school level, teaching statistics is firmly rooted in the mathematics curriculum (Ben-
Zvi & Garfield, 2008; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; Usiskin, 2014).
Increasingly, scholars in mathematics education have begun to advocate for the inclusion of
meaningful, social and political issues in school mathematics curriculum (Frankenstein, 2009;
Gutstein, 2006; Skovsmose, 1994; Wager & Stinson, 2012) and some have claimed a
sociopolitical turn (Gutiérrez, 2013) has taken place in mathematics education. These scholars
point out that by avoiding sociopolitical issues, students are deprived of opportunities to
grapple with and make sense of issues meaningful to their lives outside of school using
mathematics. Large scale sociopolitical issues, such as systemic racism, classism, climate
change, refugee crises, immigration, poverty, food shortages and waste, and environmental
pollution, could be addressed in school curriculum so that students are not only aware of them,
but have experiences investigating them. In this way, schools can serve as sites for fostering
students/citizens who can thoughtfully engage in issues in their local and global
communities for the purposes of creating a more just world for tomorrow. For people
to engage with sociopolitical issues it is important that statistical literacy goes beyond
the common conception as the consumption or production of statistical/data-based
arguments (Ben-Zvi & Garfield, 2004; Franklin et al., 2007; Gal, 2002) to include
considering how such arguments shape the world around them and how statistics can
be used to better understand the reality which they live in.
In light of the sociopolitical turn in mathematics education (Gutiérrez, 2013), and the
overwhelming presence of important social, political, historical, and environment issues in
students’ lives, it is important that the notion of statistical literacy be problematized and
(re)envisioned. My goal in this paper is to draw from critical literacy to problematize statistical
literacy specifically focusing on three elements: the use of the term critical, contexts consid-
ered, and the consumer vs. producer dichotomy. I then propose a (re)envisioned view of
statistical literacy, which I refer to as a critical statistical literacy. I end by discussing some of
the implications this perspective has for teaching as well as some of the barriers to its
implementation.

2 Citizenship

One of the fundamental arguments for statistical literacy is for individuals to be literate for their
roles as citizens within their society. There are many views of what constitutes Bgood
citizenship,^ which are contested and socially, politically and historically situated. As a
result, in order to problematize the traditional notions of statistical literacy, I think it is
important for us to first take a step back to discuss what makes a good citizen as such views
directly influence what then constitutes the statistical literacy necessary for citizenship.
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) roughly categorized views of citizenship into three main types:
personally responsible, participatory, and justice oriented. The image of a personally respon-
sible citizen is a hard working individual who follows the law, has Bgood^ character, and is
responsible in his/her community. The participatory vision of citizenship, as indicated by its
name, is one where citizens are active participants in the government and community. They
work within the system to try to improve its conditions. The third view is the justice oriented
citizen. Citizens in this view seek to find and address the root causes of injustices in society, as
well as engage in activism and leverage social movements, to effect systemic change
(Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). There are strengths and weaknesses to each of these views of
Problematizing statistical literacy

citizenship. For example, in the personally responsible view of citizenship there is no need for
active participation in government/community affairs, or working to change unjust policies or
practices. This type of citizenship maintains the status quo, which today includes unjust
structures of racism, classism, and sexism that favor certain individuals and disadvantage
others.
In this paper, I am taking the view of a Bgood^ citizen as a blending of participatory and
justice-oriented citizenship, which I will refer to as a critical citizenship, where citizens are
empowered to participate actively in their community and/or government, and also interrogate
the structures at play within their community and government that produce conditions of
injustice, and actively work to change those that (re)produce injustices. In today’s modern
societies in a globalized world, there are a plurality of different views, values, and ideas, which
citizens must be able to negotiate and navigate in their daily life.
Taking a critical citizenship perspective could contribute to creating a more just world
tomorrow, by fostering an awareness and appreciation of the plurality inherent in our society
and questioning structures at play that disadvantage those with different views, values, or
ideas. An example of this view of citizenship being played out in the context of mathematics
education can be seen in Gutstein’s (2006) descriptions of his teaching in a Chicago public
middle school. Gutstein showed students how to participant in their community and govern-
ment by taking them to town hall meetings, and also provided them with experiences in using
mathematics to investigate injustices related to racist policing practices and gentrification
present in their community. In this way, Gutstein attempted to prepare students to function
in society, as well as participate in shaping and improving society for future generations.
Critical literacy can be an entry point into school curriculum for the purposes of fostering
critical citizens (Giroux, 1989).

3 Literacy

Literacy is commonly defined around the acts of reading and writing (Gee, 2014). However,
the commonalities generally end there. One large difference in scholars’ interpretations of
literacy is whether the focus should be on the skills or knowledge necessary to read and write
(Scribner, 1984), or on the practices of reading and writing (Perry, 2012). Much literacy work
has focused on the reading and writing of words, in the dominant language of the community
of which an individual is a member (Freire & Macedo, 2003; Scribner, 1984). Over time, this
has expanded to include a multitude of different types of literacy such as financial, quantita-
tive, digital, media, and technological literacies. For this paper I am focusing specifically on
two literacies, statistical literacy and critical literacy.

3.1 Statistical literacy

Statistical literacy is a very diverse area of literature, which is generally situated in statistics
and statistics education, but is tightly intertwined with the notion of numeracy and quantitative
literacy that include concepts and practices from statistics (Cockcroft, 1982; Steen, 2001). The
inclusion of statistics in numeracy and quantitative literacies was quite influential in getting
statistics content into the standards for school mathematics (Watson, 2002). I am making the
political decision to emphasize statistics and to draw from those definitions that are explicitly
for statistical literacy instead of the more general definitions of quantitative or mathematical
 Weiland T.

literacy. I do this because statistics is a distinct methodological discipline that relies heavily on
mathematics, but has its own distinct practices and habits of mind (Cobb & Moore, 1997;
Franklin et al., 2007; Groth, 2013).
Unfortunately in the school setting, where statistical literacy is generally part of the
mathematics curriculum, it is often either skipped over or taught superficially, focusing
primarily on performing calculations (Cockcroft, 1982; Tarr, Chávez, Reys, & Reys, 2006).
I advocate for using the language of statistical literacy to make explicit there are
differences disciplinarily that should also be mirrored in the literacies students develop
because it is those unique differences, such as the centrality of both variability and
context, which make statistics so powerful for investigating the world around us. That
is not to say that an understanding of mathematics is not important to statistical
literacy—it is and has been described in great detail in past scholarship (Ben-Zvi &
Garfield, 2004; Gal, 2002; Watson & Callingham, 2003). For these reasons and due to
the brevity of this paper I will not focus on quantitative or mathematical literacies, or
numeracy work.
Much of the rationale for statistical literacy is rooted in the idea that to be a citizen in the
data drenched societies of today, it is crucial for students to be critical consumers of data based
arguments (Ben-Zvi & Garfield, 2004; Franklin et al., 2007; Gal, 2002; Steen, 2001). This can
be seen in one of the seminal definitions of statistical literacy made by the statistician
Katherine Wallman (1993): B‘Statistical Literacy’ is the ability to understand and critically
evaluate statistical results that permeate our daily lives-coupled with the ability to
appreciate the contributions that statistical thinking can make in public and private,
professional and personal decisions^ (p. 1). Wallman’s definition highlights the im-
portance of statistical literacy in terms of the ability to both understand statistical
arguments and to critically evaluate them. Her definition is also powerful in that it
points to the role of statistical literacy in public and private, as well as professional
and personal domains of life, emphasizing the importance of statistical literacy in
essentially all facets of life. Nearly a decade later scholar Iddo Gal (2002) greatly
expanded and elaborated upon the definition of statistical literacy, defining it as:
(a) people’s ability to interpret and critically evaluate statistical information, data-related
arguments, or stochastic phenomena, which they may encounter in diverse contexts, and
when relevant (b) their ability to discuss or communicate their reactions to such
statistical information, such as their understanding of the meaning of the information,
their opinions about the implications of this information, or their concerns regarding the
acceptability of given conclusions. (pp. 2-3)
Gal’s definition is focused on what he refers to as the reading context, which he argues is
the most important for the typical situations that adults encounter in their daily lives. Gal also
described in great detail the knowledge bases (literacy skills, statistical knowledge, mathemat-
ical knowledge, context knowledge, & critical questions) and the dispositional elements
(Beliefs and Attitudes & Critical stance) that are crucial to a statistical literacy.
In Gal’s definition he also mentions that there are enquiry contexts that statistical literacy is
associated with, though he focuses on the reading context. Other scholars however have delved
into the enquiry context of statistics. The most prominent example being Wild and
Pfannkuch’s (1999) work investigating the elements of statistical enquiry, which they outlined
in their PPDAC (problem, plan, data, analyze, and interpret) investigative cycle. More recently,
Franklin et al. (2007) in writing the GAISE report simplified the cycle for K-12 educational
Problematizing statistical literacy

settings by combining the plan and data elements together and renamed the elements:
formulate questions, collect data, analyze data, and interpret results.
Both Gal (2002) and Wallman’s (1993) definitions specifically focused on statistical
literacy in terms of what it looked like as an end state in adults. Watson and Callingham
(2003) later built upon the views of Gal and Wallman to develop a complex hierarchical model
of statistical literacy at the school level and to measure it in a practical way for teachers to be
able to work towards developing such a literacy in students (Callingham & Watson, 2005). In
their model, Watson and Callingham outlined and measured six levels of statistical literacy:
idiosyncratic; informal; inconsistent; consistent, non-critical; critical; and critical mathematical.
The main distinguishing features that emerged from the levels were ability to engage in
increasingly subtle contexts, and the ability to apply high level mathematical skills to critically
evaluate such contexts. The GAISE report (Franklin et al., 2007) also took a developmental
perspective focusing on how to develop a statistical reasoning frame in terms of elements of
the statistical investigative cycle described over three levels of increasing complexity with the
ultimate goal in mind of statistical literacy. The statistical literacy I outline later is meant to
balance these perspectives by presenting an end goal for the development of statistical literacy
in the school setting.

3.2 Critical literacy

Critical literacy generally draws from sociocultural definitions of literacy in that it is viewed as
the practices and abilities associated with being literate. Scholars of critical literacy foreground
the connection between literacy and power (Lankshear & McLaren, 1993). Many discuss
literacy as an emancipatory force (Freire & Macedo, 1987, 2003; Giroux, 1989;
Gutstein, 2006). This begins with learning to read the word and the world, which
then can lead to individuals who are able to write both the word and world—
transforming their lived realities through the power of literacy. The goals of society
are a site for struggle, through the dialog of a plurality of views, therefore literacy for
critical citizenship needs to include critiquing and interrogating the discourses and
structures in society that reproduce injustices. As Gutstein (2006) points out in the
context of the U.S., Bschools socialize students into non-questioning roles, creating
and maintaining passive identities so that students do not believe in their own power
to shape the world^ (p. 88). It is in shifting this dominant form of socialization in
schools that the work of critical literacy scholars can speak volumes. Providing
students with experiences to investigate how they are positioned by discourses and
also how their own schooling is shaped by historical, political, and socially construct-
ed institutions and discourses, can help students create and maintain active citizen
identities, where they believe in their own power to influence and shape the world
around them. Without such socialization, how can students become empowered to be
active participants in their communities, to become critical citizens working to nego-
tiate and shape the societies they live in?
In the context of mathematics education Rico Gutstein’s (2006) work is focused around
intersecting mathematical and critical literacy. He created a challenging mathematics curric-
ulum with his students that aimed to help them be academically successful in
mathematics and to use mathematical concepts to investigate and critique their own
context in society. Gutstein (2006) draws heavily from Friere’s literacy work, espe-
cially the idea of reading and writing the world, which he uses to describe how to
 Weiland T.

envision reading and writing the world with mathematics. Gutstein (2003) describes
reading the world with mathematics as meaning,
to use mathematics to understand relations of power, resource inequities, and disparate
opportunities between different social groups and to understand explicit discrimination
based on race, class, gender, language, and other differences. Further, it means
to dissect and deconstruct media and other forms of representation. It means to
use mathematics to examine these various phenomena both in one's immediate
life and in the broader social world and to identify relationships and make
connections between them. (p. 45)
This definition emphasizes how mathematical literacy can be used to read the word, which
increasingly includes mathematical and quantitative language (Steen, 2001), and also to read
the world, which has been structured by quantitative and technological discourses, rooted in
the abstract language of mathematics (Skovsmose, 1994). Reading the world with mathematics
can in turn lead to writing the world with mathematics, which Gutstein (2006) describes as,
Busing mathematics to change the world^ (p. 27). Taking a similar approach I am proposing
there is significant potential in intersecting statistical and critical literacies, which I will begin
to do in the next section by using ideas from critical literacy to problematize predominant
views in statistical literacy.

4 Problematization

4.1 Consumer vs. producer

The goals of statistical literacy described by Wallman (1993) and Gal (2002) are generally
viewed as a consumer perspective, where to be statistically literate; individuals need to be
effective data consumers. Data production is generally considered in terms of statistical
enquiry. Often the two are considered separately in research. For example, Gal discusses them
in terms of the reading and enquiry contexts. However, he chose to focus on the reading
context, which he considered the most common and important for adults, though he does state,
Bto enable critical understanding of reported findings or data-based claims, adults should
possess some knowledge, at least informal, of key "big ideas^ that underlie statistical
investigations^ (p. 11).
Gal’s (2002) definition is over a decade old at this point and the breakneck pace of
technological advancements over the past two decades has revolutionized the collection of
data in every facet of life and has also made it increasingly easier to analyze such abundant
data. The current information age has arguably increased significantly the importance of being
familiar with the enquiry contexts of statistics. I do not think reading is enough anymore; there
also should be an explicit focus on enquiry as the two are deeply intertwined, which is a
sentiment shared by others (e.g., Gould, 2010). Being literate in the reading context can only
go so far, as reading often operates in dialog with writing, and some experience in writing is
important to be able to make sense of and evaluate statistical arguments. For example, it is
difficult to critically evaluate the method that someone is using to analyze data in an argument
without having some experience with using that analysis themselves. I could see someone
arguing here that an individual could merely have a technical knowledge of the statistical tests
and the assumptions that need to be satisfied for such a test to be robust. However, from the
Problematizing statistical literacy

literacy perspective I am taking, the focus is on actions or practices situated in meaningful real
life contexts (Giroux, 1993; Steen, 2001).
Similar to Gutstein’s (2006) connection of mathematical and critical literacy, I would like to
draw a connection between statistical literacy and critical literacy based around the notion of
‘reading and writing the word and the world’. I propose that reading the word with
statistics is partially what Gal (2002) describes as the reading context in statistical
literacy. Furthermore, I propose writing the world with statistics is partially what Gal
(2002) refers to as the enquiry context, focusing on the statistical investigative cycle,
and in terms of the second component of his definition of statistical literacy (e.g., the
ability to communicate reactions to and understanding of statistical information). I say
partially because reading also refers to reading the world, or in other words, seeing
the world through statistics. This is not just consuming statistical messages, but using
statistics as a lens, enabling a new view of the world. Also writing the world refers to
changing one’s context, which goes beyond just producing and analyzing data and
communicating reactions to statistical information, to also using it to take action, to
change the context it is describing and creating.

4.2 Critical

The term critical is used often in descriptions of statistical literacy as evidenced in the earlier
discussion. It is important to point out however there are different uses of the term critical
which differentiate how I am using it from how it is often used in statistical literacy. Gutstein,
Lipman, Hernandez, and de los Reyes (1997) describe a similar issue in the context of their
work and point out there are two meanings of critical. One meaning for critical is in the
mathematical sense as in making sense of problems, creating arguments, making conjectures,
critiquing the reasoning of others, ideas that generally fall under the term critical thinking. In
other words, meaning to use the concepts and practices of mathematics or in this case statistics
in a highly skilled manner and to evaluate others’ reasoning and using such concepts and
practices in a sophisticated way. There is also the meaning of critical in the broad sense, using
multiple perspectives to look at an issue, and questioning one’s subjectivity and the context
one is situated in.
In a similar vein to the second use of critical that Gutstein et al. (1997) describe, I am
drawing from Foucault’s view of the term critical, not Bin relation to regulative truth,
but in the sense of critique as its enabling condition^ (Walshaw, 2007, p. 15). Critique
can enable a person to read the world, uncovering the hidden structures and discourse
that constitute and shape society, to see the ruptures in the regulative truths in our
daily lives. In this sense then statistical literacy is not just consuming statistical
messages in a critically evaluative way drawing upon concepts and practice from
statistics, but using statistics as a lens and using a broader reflective lens of the world
in dialog, enabling a new view of the world.
It is important to note that Gal (2002) made some connections to Freire’s work, in this way
opening the door for the merging of critical and statistical literacy. However, I would like to
push beyond Gal’s definition not to ignore prior uses of the term critical, but to also take the
broader view of critical to focus on reading the world thought statistics delving into important
sociopolitical issues. Furthermore, I think the notion of enabling action needs to be pushed
farther as well, to not only consider enabling action as a result of reading statistics, but to also
enabling action by writing the world through statistics.
 Weiland T.

4.3 Context

The consideration of context is central to the practice of statistics (Cobb & Moore, 1997;
Franklin et al., 2007; Wild & Pfannkuch, 1999) and is an important aspect of statistical literacy
(Gal, 2002; Watson & Callingham, 2003). The importance and treatment of context in statistics
makes it particularly powerful for dealing with sociopolitical issues such as race, gender,
sexuality, climate change, poverty, immigration, extreme nationalism and other meaningful
real life contexts (Frankenstein, 2009; Lesser, 2007). Such contexts are at the forefront of
influencing and also dividing societies today, yet these issues are generally ignored in
discussions of contexts to consider in statistics teaching or associated with statistical literacy.
Gal (2002) and Watson and Callingham (2003) in their descriptions of statistical literacy
both point out the importance of familiar contexts as well as broader and unfamiliar contexts in
statistical literacy, and both draw examples from the media. However, these examples are
generally of non-divisive issues. It is exactly such divisive issues that students are or are going
to be confronted with in their lives outside of school. So to truly create experiences for students
to experience seeing their world through statistics they need to be confronted with such
controversial and divisive issues that are dividing societies and setting individuals against
one another, in the school setting. Frankenstein’s work (Frankenstein, 1994; Frankenstein,
2009) is a prime example of using controversial issues in the context of teaching adults
quantitative literacy. If students are never provided opportunities to make sense of complex
sociopolitical issues how can they be expected to once they leave school? This is not to say
that every contextual issue considered need be controversial, but the complete absence of such
issues is a problem for preparing students to be engaged critical citizens in their communities
and societies. It is important to note here that I do not see the goal being for students to be able
to solve complex sociopolitical issues, but to begin to make sense of them for themselves and
to see how statistics can be used as a lens to do so.

5 Critical statistical literacy

Based upon the issues I highlighted in the previous section I propose a revised perspective of
statistical literacy. The key ideas I am drawing upon for this intersection can be seen in Table 1
based upon the review of literature presented earlier. The critical statistical literacy perspective
(outlined in Table 1) contributes to past scholarship by addressing the issues of foregrounding
the importance of both reading and writing statistics, highlighting a second meaning to critical
by pushing reading and writing the word to reading and writing the world as well, and by
foregrounding the importance of considering sociopolitical contexts.
Before elaborating on a critical statistical literacy perspective, an important aspect that must
be considered at every level of statistical reading and writing that I have not explicitly
highlighted yet is the omnipresence of variation (Cobb & Moore, 1997). The reason that this
notion is not at the forefront of the description of critical statistical literacy is because the
notion of variation is inherent in statistical literacy (Cobb & Moore, 1997; Franklin et al.,
2007; Gal, 2002; Wild & Pfannkuch, 1999); that is, you could not separate variation from
statistics as it would be meaningless. Furthermore, the concept of difference, whether in terms
of perspective, views, experiences, or background, is also inherent in critical literacy, which
explicitly seeks to acknowledge differences (Giroux, 1993). This commonality is a powerful
point of intersection between critical and statistical literacies.
Problematizing statistical literacy

Table 1 Framework for a critical statistical literacy

Reading Writing

Statistical Literacy • Making sense of and critiquing • Formulating statistical questions.

statistical and quantitative data
based arguments encountered
in diverse contexts.
• Evaluating the source, collection
and reporting of statistical
information.
Critical Literacy • Making sense of symbol systems.
• Identifying and interrogating social
structures in the world.
• Understanding one’s social location,
subjectivity, political context and
having a sociohistorical and political
knowledge of self and world.
Critical Statistical • Making sense of language and
Literacy statistical symbols systems and
critiquing statistical information
and data based arguments
encountered in diverse
contexts to gain an awareness
of the systemic structures
at play in society.
• Identifying and interrogating social
structures which shape and
are reinforced by data
based arguments.
• Understanding one’s social location,
subjectivity, political context and
having a sociohistorical and political
knowledge of self and understanding
how it influences one’s interpretation
of information.
• Evaluating the source, collection and
reporting of statistical information
and how they are influenced by
the author’s social positon, and
sociopolitical and historical lens.
• Collecting or finding data relevant to
answering posed statistical question(s).
• Analyzing data using appropriate
graphical and numerical methods.
• Interpreting analyzed data addressing
the statistical question(s) being
investigated.
• Discussing or communicating the
meaning of statistical information
• Creating and communicating one’s
own meaning through symbol systems.
• Actively influencing and shaping
structures in society.
• Working to alleviate and resolve
sociopolitical issues of injustice.
• Actively negotiating and navigating
dialectical tensions in society.
• Communicating one’s social location,
subjectivity, and political context
to others
• Using statistical investigations to
communicate statistical information
and arguments in an effort to
destabilize and reshape structures of
injustice for a more just society.
• Using statistical investigations to
alleviate and resolve sociopolitical
issues of injustice
• Negotiating societal dialectical tensions
when formulating statistical questions,
data collection and analysis methods
and highlighting such tensions in the
results of a statistical investigation.
• Communicating one’s social location,
subjectivity, and political context to
others and how it shapes one’s meaning
making of the world when reporting
results of a statistical investigation.

Reading and writing in a critical statistical literacy perspective include the traditional
notions of reading and writing from the statistical literacy literature discussed earlier. Individ-
uals should to be able to make sense of language and statistical symbol systems and to use
those symbol systems to communicate their understanding as well. This is important if they are
to critique and communicate statistical information and data based arguments they encounter
in diverse contexts. Instead of reiterating what other scholars have described in detail, I will
focus here instead on the contribution of a critical statistical literacy in pushing beyond just
reading and writing the word to also reading and writing the world through a new lens.
 Weiland T.

Reading the world through a critical statistical lens includes identifying and interrogating
social structures and discourses that shape and are reinforced by data based arguments.
Statistical arguments are not made from an objective independent reality. They are made by
individuals from a multitude of subjectivities. In this sense statistical arguments can serve to
perpetuate discourses. For example, see Lubienski and Gutiérrez’s (2008) discussion of
research on the achievement gap and what such discourse creates. It is important for individ-
uals to read into arguments, to interrogate what discourses are creating them, and to determine
whether to accept them, while being aware of their inconsistencies, or to reject them, and the
social structures they perpetuate. This aspect is tied to writing the world with statistics, which
includes using statistical investigations to communicate statistical information and arguments
in an effort to destabilize and reshape structures of injustice. Just as statistical investigations
and arguments perpetuate certain discourses and structures in society, from a critical perspec-
tive they can also be used to point out ruptures and discontinuities in them. There is an
unprecedented wealth of publicly available data today, from demographic data, to justice
system data, to educational data, all of which are ripe for analysis of sociopolitical issues, such
as systemic racism, sexism, classism, and any type of Bothering.^ Statistical investigations do
not only need to be used to destabilize, but can also be used to produce new structures and
discourses as well, using statistical investigations to alleviate and resolve sociopolitical issues
of injustice.
Another important component of reading is to consider one’s social location, subjectivity,
and political context and understand how it influences one’s interpretation of information when
reading, critiquing, and evaluating statistical arguments. A person’s reading of the world is
filtered through the discourses they are shaped by and take up. Reading the world with
statistics is no different. How an individual sees the world as described in statistical arguments
is shaped by their social location, subjectivity, and political context. Such subjectivity shapes a
person’s evaluation of the question of study, the data collected, how it was analyzed, and the
conclusions that are drawn and reported.
This notion of subjectivity is also deeply connected to writing in terms of communicating
one’s social location, subjectivity, and political context to others. Describing how one’s
subjectivity influences and shapes one’s meaning making of the world when reporting results
is an important aspect of performing a statistical investigation. One must also consider how
their position might influence the manner and type of data that is collected. For instance, Utts
(2003) asserts that it is important to be aware of Bcommon sources of bias in surveys and
experiments, such as poor wording of questions, volunteer response, and socially desirable
answers^ (p. 75). However, taking into account one’s position goes beyond this to also
consider how one’s position shapes the questions created, the design of protocols, the wording
used, and how the position of the person collecting the data might shape and influence the
responses given by an individual. In statistics this is not new, but when we consider the
influence of power relations it broadens the horizons of just how much bias is actually inherent
in any study, and calls into question what claims can truly be made. For example, as a white,
middle class, well-educated male, I speak from a particular perspective and position, which
influences everything I do including the questions I create for surveys and interviews that may
be interpreted, and taken up by individuals from other groups, in completely different ways
than my original intention.
Another important aspect of writing includes negotiating and navigating dialectical tensions
in society when formulating statistical questions, data collection, and analysis methods, while
explicitly discussing such tensions in the communication of the results of a statistical
Problematizing statistical literacy

investigation. An important example of this in the context of statistics is operationalizing

variables, explicating how they will be measured. This is particularly important in the context
of statistical literacy in mathematics education, as determining how to measure something is a
problem space shared by both mathematics and statistics (Groth, 2015). This issue is also
relevant to critical literacy and issues of social justice (Lesser, 2007) as race, gender, socio-
economic status, age are all variables commonly used in quantitative social science studies,
and have been operationalized in particular ways. One must consider the tensions inherent in
creating such categories, which do not truly exist, but are social constructs (Butler, 1990).
Frankenstein (1994, 2009) provides many great examples in her work of problematizing the
operationalization of variables, such as what counts as unemployed for unemployment rates
reported by the government, or how poverty is defined by the government. The way that
variables are operationalized can furthermore create social categories and produce discourses
that disadvantage individuals and groups. This is a topic that is not only important when
planning a statistical investigation, but also must be considered when reading statistical
arguments as well, again showing the strong connection of reading and writing.

6 Implementation and barriers

Now that I have made an argument for a critical statistical literacy and outlined its entailments
a serious consideration is how to incorporate such a perspective into the school mathematics
curriculum. In mathematics education scholars have begun calling for the use of critical
(Frankenstein, 1994; Skovsmose, 1994; Wager & Stinson, 2012) and culturally relevant
pedagogies (Gutstein et al., 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1995) over the past two decades. These
scholars seek to create mathematics classrooms where students learn how to understand their
social, cultural, and political context in society, as well as how to change their context. Many
of these scholars argue for centering pedagogy around problem posing, and connecting
mathematics to fundamental questions of society, rather than focusing on neutral or trivial
problems/contexts (Frankenstein, 2009; Freire, 1970; Gutstein, 2006; Gutstein & Peterson,
2013). Focusing on neutral or trivial problems/contexts is a serious problem, because as
Skovsmose (1994) points out, in mathematics education there is a Bparadox of relevance: on
the one hand, mathematics has a pervasive social influence and, on the other hand, students
and children are unable to recognize this relevance^ (p. 82). These arguments also carry over
to the teaching of statistics in the mathematics curriculum.
A very serious barrier to implementing a critical statistical literacy into the school mathe-
matics curriculum is the lack of resources mathematics teachers have available to do so. This
comes both in the form of written curriculum or instructional materials as well as in terms of
prior experiences. The absence of a coherent curriculum has been mentioned as a serious issue
in the context of teaching critical mathematics where most work has been piecemeal at this
point (Brantlinger, 2013), with one of the most notable examples being Gutstein and Peterson’s
(2013) collection of critical mathematical activities. The same issue holds true for statistical
activities and lessons that deal with sociopolitical issues. For examples of such activities www.
radicalmath.org and www.gapminder.org are good resources and Lesser (2007) provides a
significant number of activity ideas and links to useful resources.
Another barrier that has been pointed out is that creating lessons for teaching critical
mathematics is very time consuming (Brantlinger, 2011; Gutstein, 2006) making the practice
impractical for most full time teachers who often have to prepare lessons for and teach several
 Weiland T.

lessons every day of the week. This issue is exacerbated by the reality that many mathematics
teachers have had little to no prior experience with learning or using statistics (Shaughnessy,
2007) from which to draw upon in creating lessons. Fortunately, this issue is being addressed
in policy documents around the education of teachers (Franklin et al., 2015). However, it will
take time before the effects of such policies are seen in the classroom and they will only be
seen in new teachers.
A potentially powerful approach to implementing the teaching of a critical statistical
literacy in the school setting could be making a concerted effort to create a coherent set of
curricular resources for teachers that promote such a literacy perspective. This was one of the
main directions taken by scholars in the mathematics reform movement of the 1990s in the
United States, which have also been used by critical scholars as a basis for critical mathematics
instruction as well (Brantlinger, 2011; Gutstein, 2006). Similar attempts were also made in
statistics education community with the development of the Quantitative Literacy Series and
Data Driven Mathematics curriculums (see http://www.amstat.org/ASA/Education/K-12-
Educators.aspx for more details).
A coherent set of curricular resources coupled with professional development could provide
classroom teachers with the resources to consider implementing a critical statistical literacy
perspective in their classrooms. This approach is not without its limitations, funding being the
most notable. However, what I am proposing is of a much smaller scope than earlier
curriculum development projects as the focus is on statistics concepts and practices specifi-
cally, which amounts to approximately the first two-thirds of the content covered in a college
level introductory statistics course. A collaborative effort between statisticians, statistics and
mathematics educators, and classroom teachers in creating such materials and supporting their
implementation in the classroom could be instrumental in leading to a shift in the statistical
literacy taught to students.
Another issue for implementing a critical literacy perspective in school mathematics would
be the consideration of sociopolitical contexts. Mathematics is often portrayed in very neutral
and decontextualized ways in school classrooms (Skovsmose, 1994). To delve into such issues
requires knowledge of those contexts (Gal, 2002), which is not often a part of mathematics
teacher’s preparation. Creating a coherent set of curricular materials could help to alleviate
these issues to some extent by providing such information for teachers. Another issue is that
sociopolitical issues can be controversial and divisive, which can make teachers, students, and
their parents uncomfortable about their inclusion in the curriculum. However, teaching of
statistics concepts has been found to be a powerful way of introducing sociopolitical issues
into mathematics and quantitative literacy instruction (Brantlinger, 2013; Frankenstein, 1994).
The very disciplinary differences discussed in the literature between mathematics and
statistics such as the centrality of context and variation (Cobb & Moore, 1997; Groth, 2013)
make statistics well suited for the investigation of sociopolitical issues. Such disciplinary
differences could also be a way to combat the barriers to implementing critical literacy and
pedagogy and reform curriculum discussed in mathematics education around people’s identi-
fication of what constitutes mathematics (Boaler, 2002; Brantlinger, 2011, 2013). In
this way, statistics being a distinct discipline from mathematics could alleviate these
issues by offloading some of the baggage that comes with most people’s extensive
past experiences constructing powerful images of what constitutes mathematics
through their past school experience. Furthermore, statistics as a methodological
discipline is inherently transdisciplinary making it a potential entry point for socio-
political issues into the school curriculum more broadly.
Problematizing statistical literacy

A potentially powerful direction for implementing a critical statistical literacy could be to

push teaching such literacy beyond the domain of the mathematics curriculum into other
content areas in the school curriculum, a sentiment shared by others (e.g., Usiskin, 2014;
Watson, 2002). This would also be an approach that could be used to help bring in the
expertise of teachers from other disciplines to help supplement some of the gaps in contextual
knowledge to carry out investigations of complex contextual issues while mathematics
teachers could contribute their mathematical expertise creating powerful and potentially
fruitful links to enriching the school curriculum. I have only briefly addressed some of the
potential routes for and barriers to the implementation of a critical literacy perspective as such
discussion could easily fill a book and my primary goal in this paper is to argue for a new view
of statistical literacy.

7 Conclusion

In this theoretical paper, I have highlighted some of the important intersections between
statistical literacy and critical literacies in hopes that it will contribute to the growing body
of critical mathematics and mathematics for social justice literature, and to emphasize the
power and relevance of statistics in those conversations. I problematized traditional notions of
statistical literacy to form a basis to propose a revised perspective of statistical literacy. From
this perspective, it is crucial for students to have opportunities to tackle complex sociopolitical
issues in conjunction with learning powerful statistical concepts and practices in an effort to be
able to read and write both the word and the world with statistics as critical citizens. This paper
contributes to the field by provoking discussion around statistical literacy in the school
curriculum and by creating a theoretical argument that has implications for both future research
and practice.
Relative to practice, enacting a critical statistical literacy perspective in the school mathe-
matics curriculum will be no easy feat as there are many barriers to such enactment some of
which I described in the previous section. For such a change to be possible it is going to take
the work of individuals at the classroom, school, research, and policy levels working in
collaboration. Relative to research, there are many important questions that need to be
considered and investigated including, how is a curriculum that fosters a critical statistical
literacy created that opens up a space for dialog, exploration, and investigation of meaningful
sociopolitical issues? How would such a curriculum be enacted in the classroom?
How could teacher educators prepare teachers to teach such a curriculum and what
explicit strategies could they employ to do so? How can the voices of students be
incorporated into such a curriculum so that learning experiences are created in
conjunction with students not just for students?
In spite of the challenges and barriers to implementation inroads are being made (e.g.,
Frankenstein, 1994; Lesser, 2007). Change is slow, but if no attempts are made then the status
quo will be maintained of presenting students only with opportunities to use statistics in
decontextualized situations, or apolitical contexts at best, which is a diminished view of the
power of statistics to make sense of the world and I believe our students deserve better.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jesse Bazzul and Shakhnoza Kayumova for their constructive
feedback over the numerous iterations of this paper and for creating a space for me to explore and play with
ideas. I would also like to thank Rich Lehrer for being a critical friend and for pushing the boundaries of what I
thought possible in the teaching and learning of statistics. Finally, I would like to thank the reviewers for their
 Weiland T.

thorough and constructive feedback, which helped me to refine and strengthen my arguments and provided a
stimulating discussion.

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