Abstract
Through their middle school years (Years 5–9) students develop beliefs about mathematics and mathematics education which are substantially influenced by their experiences in mathematics classrooms. In this chapter we report and discuss the findings from our empirical studies related to the mathematical beliefs and attitudes of middle year’s students towards mathematics. In general, these students held utilitarian beliefs about mathematics, and they thought that mathematics was important and useful, and this was in-line with the curriculum emphasis on numeracy. However, they also saw mathematics as a gatekeeper to good jobs and future education. Overall, the middle school students had a positive attitude towards mathematics but they did not want to be a mathematician. The data did not indicate that these students had either strong traditional beliefs or high maths anxiety.
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