Proportional Reasoning.

Proportional reasoning is the ability to compare two things using multiplicative thinking.  Something like when we have students use proportional reasoning to identify similar triangles, or solving for the unknown.  Sometimes we find problems in the book for enlarging photos or scale models.

I've seldom seen it applied to a real life situation until I came across an article applying it to social justice.  There are several types of problems which fall under the general topic of social justice.

1.  Calculating population growth and the associated crime rates. One way to handle this is to look at the population growth for local populations so students can determine when they need to find differences and when they need ratios.  They also need to determine when starting population differences make a difference and when they do not such as in building a fixed number of houses or creating a new electrical grid.

Population growth is important.  I have some cousins who live outside of Washington, D.C. in Virginia.  The area underwent tremendous growth because people could still find a great deal in the cost of housing but traffic became extremely bad when the area could not keep up with the number of cars on the road.

When you start to compare crime rates in the same areas and look only at violent crimes, students can look at ratios and percentages to determine which location is safer based on that criteria.

2.  Look at the representation in Congress versus the population of racial composition by state or over all.  If you wanted, you could take a look at the representation in the state government versus the racial composition of that state.

3. Look at historical immigration rates from 1820 to 2000 to see how rates have changed over time.  You could even look at recent rates to see where the majority of immigrants come from. 

4. Look at the pay people who work in sweat shops make versus the cost the item sells for in stores in the United States.  Calculate the daily, monthly, and yearly rates earned by these workers.

This google site has a wonderful list of places to find additional lessons connecting proportional reasoning with social justice.  In addition, many of the lessons have students applying mathematics to social topics. 

In addition, the October 2015 issue of Mathematics teaching in the Middle School magazine has great information for turning general textbook problems into more personalized problems students can relate to better.

Let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from people.