The Bob Moses Research Center at Florida International University is proud to be one of the collaborators in a bold new initiative: Voices in Math, a project supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the national Math Narrative Project. In partnership with The Young People’s Project (YPP), this effort centers the voices and stories of young people as a pathway to transforming how math is taught, understood, and experienced.
Voices in Math is grounded in a simple yet radical idea: when students shape the narrative about their relationship to math—what it means to them, what it feels like, what it can unlock—they begin to engage more deeply and confidently with the subject. The project focuses on developing narrative interventions: the use of messaging, language, and storytelling to help students construct new, empowering identities as math learners.
The Moses Center will launch the Voices in Math initiative in Miami through student-led programming facilitated by The Young People’s Project in collaboration with Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Students will engage in peer-led math activities and reflective storytelling practices that promote leadership, confidence, and a stronger sense of identity as math learners. Their experiences will contribute to a growing strategy for how we talk about—and transform—math learning nationwide.
The Bob Moses Research Center will serve as the research and learning hub for the initiative. In partnership with YPP, the Center will design the research framework, co-develop narrative tools, and collect insights to understand how messaging and identity shape student engagement. This work will inform a national model for using student-centered narratives to strengthen math identity and shift learning environments at scale.
"We believe that when students are supported in telling their own stories about math—the struggles, the breakthroughs, the possibilities—they begin to see themselves differently, and that changes everything. This project allows us to reframe what it means to learn math, not just for students in Miami, but for a national movement that’s long overdue,” said Dr. Brian Williams, Executive Director of the Bob Moses Research Center.
This project builds on previous research from the Gates Foundation’s Math Narrative Project, which has shown how framing and identity-based messages can meaningfully impact student outcomes—particularly for Black and Latine students from under-resourced communities. The Moses Center and YPP are honored to carry that work forward in a way that puts youth voice at the center.