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The construct of identity has been used widely in mathematics education in order to understand how students (and teachers) relate to and engage with the subject (Kaasila, ; Sfard & Prusak, ; Boaler, ). Drawing on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), this paper adopts Leont’ev’s notion of leading activity in order to explore the key ‘significant’ activities that are implicated in the development of students’ reflexive understanding of self and how this may offer differing relations with mathematics. According to Leont’ev (), leading activities are those which are significant to the development of the individual’s psyche through the emergence of new motives for engagement. We suggest that alongside new motives for engagement comes a new understanding of self—a leading identity—which reflects a hierarchy of our motives. Narrative analysis of interviews with two students (aged 16–17 years old) in post-compulsory education, Mary and Lee, are presented. Mary holds a stable ‘vocational’ leading identity throughout her narrative and, thus, her motive for studying mathematics is defined by its ‘use value’ in terms of pursuing this vocation. In contrast, Lee develops a leading identity which is focused on the activity of studying and becoming a university student. As such, his motive for study is framed in terms of the exchange value of the qualifications he hopes to obtain. We argue that this empirical grounding of leading activity and leading identity offers new insights into students’ identity development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study developed in the context of indigenous teachers education from Xingu Indian Park, Brazil. The indigenous bilingual (or multilingual in some cases) teachers that participated in this education program were from 14 ethnic groups. The research focused on a mathematics textbook production, written in indigenous language by indigenous teachers to be used at schools in the Park. The paper discusses the numeracy-literacy practices in this process and focuses on the meanings, values and ways of use that are related to numbers, writing and drawing. In particular, mathematics problems written by the indigenous teachers (in indigenous language and Portuguese) are analyzed. The analysis shows how aspects of orality influence the writing of these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the international community of mathematics and science educators the intuitive rules theory developed by the Israeli researchers Tirosh and Stavy receives much attention. According to this theory, students' responses to a variety of mathematical and scientific tasks can be explained in terms of their application of some common intuitive rules. Two major intuitive rules are manifested in comparison tasks: `More A–more B' and `Same A–same B'. In this paper, we address two important questions for which the existing literature on intuitive rules does not provide a convincing research-based answer: (1) are the reasoning processes of students who respond in line with a given intuitive rule actually affected by that rule or by essentially other misconceptions (leading to the same answer), and (2) are individual students consistent in their choice of one of the intuitive rules when confronted with different, conceptually unrelated tasks? A test consisting of five comparison problems from different mathematical subdomains was administered collectively to 172 Flemish students from Grades 10 to 12. An analysis of students' written calculations and justifications suggested that the students were considerably less affected by the intuitive rules than their multiple-choice answers actually suggested. Instead, essentially different misconceptions and errors were found. With respect to the issue of individual consistency, we found that students who made many errors did not answer systematically in line with one of the two intuitive rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visualization, as both the product and the process of creation, interpretation and reflection upon pictures and images, is gaining increased visibility in mathematics and mathematics education. This paper is an attempt to define visualization and to analyze, exemplify and reflect upon the many different and rich roles it can and should play in the learning and the doing of mathematics. At the same time, the limitations and possible sources of difficulties visualization may pose for students and teachers are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of academic and vocational subject matter is offered in response to efforts to make the study of mathematics meaningful and engaging for all students, as well as aid in the preparation of a mathematically literate workforce. Yet, teachers often come to mathematics education with more `pure' than `applied' backgrounds making it difficult for them to draw upon their own experiences to make subject matter meaningful. This paper analyses prospective teachers' opportunities to connect subject matter with workplace contexts. It examines the degree of importance prospective teachers place on workplace connections and the ways in which they incorporate these connections in classroom lesson plans. Results suggest that given opportunities to visit workplace sites, it is not a trivial task for prospective teachers to: 1) make the mathematics in work explicit, and 2) keep the mathematics contextualized when designing activities and problems for students. These results have implications for teacher education and the support prospective teachers require in building networks connecting mathematics, pedagogy, and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how to enhance the learning of low-achieving students in mathematics presents an important challenge to researchers and teachers alike. We investigated whether and how the use of a contextual story presented in a video clip facilitated low-achieving students' understanding of the meaning of fraction expansion. To this end, we (a) videotaped one group of three such students during a guided interaction session, (b) interviewed students and teachers about their first impressions of the use of the video clip, and (c) conducted pre-post-tests to examine the discourse students choose to employ to discuss expansion. Despite the interviewees' impression that the use of the video clips makes it easier to remember the story, the analysis of the guided interaction session revealed that the students did not use it spontaneously when asked to explain why a fraction and its expanded form are equivalent. Rather, their explanations revolved around the expansion procedure. It was the tutor's careful interventions in the discourse, building on the students' recall of the story, which led to a synergy effect that facilitated the students' understanding and articulation of the meaning of fraction expansion. This combination proved to be a potentially successful strategy in effectively promoting low-achieving students' understanding in mathematics, as demonstrated in the students' discourse and post-test performance. At the same time, our results highlight the delicate scaffolding required to achieve a beneficial effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers in the UK and elsewhere are now expected to foster creativity in young children (NACCCE, ; Ofsted, ; DfES, ; DfES/DCMS, ). Creativity, however, is more often associated with the arts than with mathematics. The aim of the study was to explore and document pre-service (in the UK, pre-service teachers are referred to as ‘trainee’ teachers) primary teachers’ conceptions of creativity in mathematics teaching in the UK. A questionnaire probed their conceptions early in their course, and these were supplemented with data from semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the responses indicated that pre-service teachers’ conceptions were narrow, predominantly associated with the use of resources and technology and bound up with the idea of ‘teaching creatively’ rather than ‘teaching for creativity’. Conceptions became less narrow as pre-service teachers were preparing to enter schools as newly qualified, but they still had difficulty in identifying ways of encouraging and assessing creativity in the classroom. This difficulty suggests that conceptions of creativity need to be addressed and developed directly during pre-service education if teachers are to meet the expectations of government as set out in the above documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the present study was to identify and examine the concerns of primary school teachers in Cyprus in relation to the recent implementation of a new mathematics curriculum and the use of new mathematics textbooks. An adaptation of the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ) based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) was administered to a representative sample of teachers. According to the findings, the concerns of teachers largely focused on the task stage of the CBAM model. Furthermore, there were significant differences in the concerns of teachers across years of teaching experience but not across years of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]