The attitude construct is widely used by teachers and researchers in mathematics education. Often, however, teachers' diagnosis of 'negative attitude' is a causal attribution of students' failure, perceived as global and uncontrollable, rather than an accurate interpretation of students' behaviour, capable of steering future action. In order to make this diagnosis useful for dealing with students' difficulties in mathematics, it is necessary to clarify the construct attitude from a theoretical viewpoint, while keeping in touch with the practice that motivates its use. With this aim, we investigated how students tell their own relationship with mathematics, proposing the essay "Me and maths" to more than 1,600 students (1st to 13th grade). A multidimensional characterisation of a student's attitude towards mathematics emerges from this study. This characterisation and the study of the evolution of attitude have many important consequences for teachers' practice and education. For example, the study shows how the relationship with mathematics is rarely told as stable, even by older students: this result suggests that it is never too late to change students' attitude towards mathematics

Recent research in the field of affect has highlighted the need to theoretically clarify constructs such as beliefs, emotions and attitudes, and to better investigate the relationships among them. As regards the definition of attitude, in a previous study we proposed a characterization of attitude towards mathematics grounded in students' experiences, investigating how students express their own relationship with mathematics. The data collected suggest a three-dimensional model of attitude towards mathematics that includes students' emotional disposition, their vision of mathematics, and their perceived competence. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between beliefs and emotions, investigating the interplay among the three dimensions in the proposed model of attitude, as emerging in the students' essays

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Tertiary transition in mathematics appears to be an insurmountable struggle for many students, including for high achievers in secondary school. The high dropout rates in many Western Countries represent a big issue from an individual and social point of view. It appears particularly significant to analyse this phenomenon in the context of the degree course in Mathematics, studying students' cognitive and affective reactions to the (often unexpected and severe) difficulties encountered in the tertiary transition. With this aim, we developed a narrative study in a specific context in Italy-that involves excellent students from secondary school-to investigate how successful and dropout students describe their experience in transition. Implications for the educational practice are discussed.

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The purpose of this publication is to record the current state of the art in research on mathematics-related affect. Research on mathematics-related affect is varied in theories and concepts. Rather than trying to address all perspectives in one chapter, we have identified significant strands of research and invited colleagues from these strands to each write a short section summarizing the state of the art in that strand.The concepts and theories pertaining to the affective domain can be mapped along three dimensions (Hannula 2012). The first dimension identifies three broad categories of affect: motivation, emotions, and beliefs. In this Topical Survey, motivation is covered in Sect. 2.5 (Middleton, Jansen, and Goldin), which also discusses how emotions and beliefs relate to motivation; Sects. 2.2 (Pantziara) and 1.2.3 (Zhang and Morselli) are on beliefs; and Sect. 2.1 (Di Martino) on attitude more or less cross-cuts through all these categories. The second dimension is movement from rapidly fluctuating state to more stable trait. All of the sections in this chapter focus on trait-type affect while only Sect. 2.5 (by Middleton, Jansen, and Goldin) discusses both of these dimensions (referred to as "in the moment" and "long term"). The last dimension covers the theorizing level, which has three main levels in mathematics-related affect: physiological (embodied), psychological (individual), and social. Mathematics-related affect has mainly been studied using psychological theories and consequently most sections discuss only such research. The so-called social turn (Lerman 2000) in mathematics education is in this Topical Survey mainly reflected in Sect. 2.4 (Heyd-Metzuyanim, Lutovac, and Kaasila) on identity, but Sect. 2.5 (Middleton, Jansen, and Goldin) on motivation also has both a section which discusses the social level and how it interplays with the individual level and a section on self-efficacy which highlights the emerging research on the collective efficacy of collaborative groups. The physiological level

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How can school mathematics prepare citizens for a democratic society? Answers to this question are not static; they change as society and its problems change. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with its corresponding disease COVID-19 presents such a problem: what is needed to navigate this complex situation that involves, among other things, mathematics? Using the essay genre, we use three narratives from three countries—Italy, the USA (California), and Germany—to reflect on the goals of teaching mathematics during this crisis and examine aspects of each country’s standards for mathematics education. These three stories are framed by the authors’ backgrounds, experiences, interests, their country’s situation, and response to the pandemic. We first present the three narratives and then examine common issues across them that might provide insights beyond this current crisis, for preparing students to become active citizens. In particular, we focus on three issues: (1) developing a positive mindset toward mathematics to engage with and reflect on real-world problems, (2) improving interdisciplinary connections to the sciences to better understand how science professional practices and insights are similar or different from everyday practices, and (3) considering interpersonal and collective matters beyond the individual.