Theoretical frameworks in research on and with mathematics teachers

Abstract

In her overview of trends in mathematics education research, Anna Sfard (2005) suggests that ‘‘the last few years have been the era of the teacher as the almost uncontested focus of researchers’ attention’’ (p. 409, emphasis in original). Since then the research interest in teachers has certainly not diminished, as evidenced by the high and growing number of conference papers, journal articles, and monographs in the field as well as by the emphasis on teachers and teacher education in recent handbooks on mathematics education. It is a characteristic feature of most of this research that it is conducted within one of the three relatively distinct fields of teachers’ knowledge, teachers’ beliefs (or affect more generally), and teacher identity. Despite the unquestionable advances in each of the three fields, there is a somewhat surprising disconnect between them, leading to an incoherent view of the teacher and her or his role in instruction. This seems to be due not only to the different objects of investigation, but at least in part to different theoretical and methodological assumptions leading to qualitatively different units of analysis. Notwithstanding the differences within each of the three fields, research practices among them appear to particularly differ in their ways of dealing with (1) the relationships between individual and social understandings of teacher development and the role of the teacher for classroom practice, and (2) the relationship between theory and practice, especially the expectations with regard to impact on instruction and student learning. The intention of this issue of ZDM is to promote discussion about the relationships between the theoretical assumptions of research conducted on teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and identity. The authors were asked to write papers that may be empirical and contribute with novel understandings within one of the three fields, but which highlight the underlying theoretical and/or methodological positions and assumptions, especially as they relate to the two dimensions mentioned above, that is, the ones of the individual and/or social emphases and of theory–practice relationships. The intention of the issue, then, is not merely to present yet another collection of papers in one or other of the three fields. Rather it is to initiate a meta-discussion about the relationships among the three lines of inquiry in order to take the general field forward, and investigate the possibilities— or lack thereof—for more coherent approaches to the field.