Situating Research on Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs and on Change

The six chapters in this section focus on studying teachers’ beliefs with a particular concern for how those beliefs might change in order to improve the teaching of mathematics in our schools. Five of the chapters draw on empirical studies whilst the sixth gives an overview of recent research to investigate how researchers interpret teachers’ beliefs and what evidence they use for their claims. There are important theoretical analyses offered and fascinating stories told of teachers and by teachers concerning their beliefs and their practices. In the first part of this review I will draw out some of the key themes in the six chapters and indicate commonalities and differences. My contribution in the second section will be to try to situate these studies within research in the mathematics education community in order to point out some alternative orientations for the study of teachers and teaching-and-learning mathematics.

[1]  T. Popkewitz.  Rethinking decentralization and state/civil society distinctions: the state as a problematic of governing 1 , 1996 .

[2]  J. Lave.  Cognition in Practice: Outdoors: a social anthropology of cognition in practice , 1988 .

[3]  Elizabeth Fennema,et al.  Mathematics Teachers in Transition , 1997 .

[4]  Fou-Lai Lin,et al.  Making Sense of Mathematics Teacher Education , 2000 .

[5]  Deborah Schifter,et al.  Learning Mathematics for Teaching: From a Teachers' Seminar to the Classroom , 1998 .

[6]  Deborah Schifter,et al.  What's Happening in Math Class? Vol. 2: Reconstructing Professional Identities. , 1996 .

[7]  Stephen Lerman,et al.  Mathematics Teachers' Positions and Practices in Discourses of Assessment , 2002 .

[8]  B. Bernstein.  Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: An essay , 1999 .

[9]  J. Boaler.  Multiple Perspectives on Mathematics Teaching and Learning , 2000 .

[10]  J. Wertsch.  Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action , 1992 .

[11]  Leslie P. Steffe,et al.  Interaction or intersubjectivity? A reply to Lerman , 2000 .

[12]  Stephen Lerman,et al.  A Case of Interpretations of "Social": A Response to Steffe and Thompson. , 2000 .

[13]  Stephen Lerman,et al.  A Review of Research Perspectives on Mathematics Teacher Education , 2001 .

[14]  Douglas A. Grouws,et al.  Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning , 1992 .

[15]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[16]  Jeff Evans,et al.  Adults' Mathematical Thinking and Emotions: A Study of Numerate Practice , 2000 .

[17]  A. Schutz.  Teaching Freedom? Postmodern Perspectives , 2000 .

[18]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .