The aim of this article is to explore how a sociopolitical analysis can contribute to a deeper understanding of critical aspects for becoming primary mathematics teachers' identities during teacher education. The question we ask is the following: How may power relations in university settings affect becoming mathematics teachers' subject positioning? We elaborate on the elusive and interrelated concepts of identity, positioning and power, seen as dynamic and changeable. As these concepts represent three interconnected parts of research analysis in an on-going larger project data from different sources will be used in this illustration. In this paper, we clarify the theoretical stance, ground the concepts historically and strive to connect them to research analysis. In this way, we show that power relations and subject positioning in social settings are critical aspects and need to be taken seriously into account if we aim at understanding becoming teachers' identities.
'Good teaching' remains disputed, but few studies have empirically studied variations in views of good teaching as reflected in teacher education. This study performed a content analysis of criteria for student teacher lesson observations stated in protocols from universities in six countries. Similarities across the protocols were the absence of images of the charismatic and the technical-professional teacher, and the dearth of teleological aspects. The degree to which protocols reflected a knowledge base, had clear implementation requirements, valued reasoned judgement, and valued transformation of content varied. On the basis of this range of images of the desired teacher, we suggest four categories of teacher images: the knowledgeable teacher, the knowledge-transforming teacher, the efficient teacher, and the constantly improving teacher, and further discuss the possibility of an inspired teacher.
The purpose of this study is to configure the landscape of empirical mathematics educational research on problem-solving in teacher education, and thereby disentangle how mathematical problem-solving is understood and used. The method consists of a configurative review of empirical mathematics education research on problem-solving in teacher education. A two-dimensional model is presented to illustrate how different aspects of problem-solving in teacher education are connected to and complement each other. Using the model, the configuration results in the proposition of four major categories of research on problem-solving in teacher education. The result indicates an almost equal distribution of research which views problem-solving as an aim for mathematics education versus research which views problem-solving as a means for learning mathematics. However, within the former, roughly three quarters of the articles focus on content knowledge, and only a quarter on pedagogical content knowledge. Implications for teacher education and future research are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.