PAOLA SZTAJN

ADAPTING REFORM IDEAS IN DIFFERENT MATHEMATICS

CLASSROOMS: BELIEFS BEYOND MATHEMATICS

ABSTRACT. The goals of this study are to understand elementary school teachers’ beliefs
and practices and to unveil factors that influence the way teachers adapt mathematics
reform rhetoric when trying to adopt it. In the research, I searched for beliefs beyond
mathematics that influence teachers’ decisions and choices for teaching mathematics.
Working with children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, teachers interpret
reform in different ways. Based on their concept of students’ needs, teachers select which
parts of the reform documents are appropriate for their students. While children from upper
socioeconomic backgrounds experience problem solving, those from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds undergo rote learning. Because not all children have the opportunity to learn
the same quality mathematics, the emerging concern of this study is the issue of equity in
mathematics teaching.

KEY WORDS: equity, ideology, reform, teacher beliefs

Studies of teachers dealing with innovations in school mathematics such

as those described in the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School
Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM],
1989) have shown that, despite our long history of resistance to change
(Cuban, 1993), mathematics teachers can successfully make modifica-
tions in their practices (e.g., Fennema & Nelson, 1997; Ferrini-Mundy &
Schram, 1997; Schifter & Fosnot, 1993; Wood, Cobb & Yackel, 1991). The
favorable results reported are usually based on notions such as sustained
partnership or leadership, on-going collaboration, community, and long-
term support for teachers to embrace new recommendations. In these
studies, teachers are often part of a wider change initiative, which includes
at least one of many resources such as workshops with mathematics
specialists (in different formats), connections with universities or research
groups, and systemic endeavors of change.
However, everyday classroom reality for most teachers does not include
such sustained, on-going, long-term support for change. Although 99% of
the teachers participate each year in professional development opportu-
nities (U.S. Department of Education, 1999), most of these opportunities
last less than one day of work. Thus, teachers typically are left to face the
many challenges of reform in mathematics by themselves. They have to
put together, according to their own beliefs and interpretations of existing

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 6: 53–75, 2003.

© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
54 PAOLA SZTAJN

rhetoric, what they consider to be the best mathematics education for their
students.
In this article, case studies are presented of two elementary school
teachers interpreting and implementing current recommendations for
change in mathematics teaching. These teachers are “typical” in that they
are not part of any project or major collaboration effort aimed at changing
their knowledge, beliefs, or practices in mathematics. They are in their
classrooms, at their schools, working hard to make sense of current calls
for change. They may exchange ideas with their colleagues, they may
read mathematics-related reform materials, but they rely on their own
knowledge and beliefs to implement reform changes.
The research conducted aimed at understanding these typical teachers’
beliefs and practices, unveiling factors that shape how teachers adapt
reform rhetoric when trying to adopt it. From a holistic perspective, I
searched for ways in which beliefs that go beyond mathematics, mathe-
matics teaching and learning experiences influence teachers’ decisions and
choices for teaching this subject.
In the next sections, I present the assumptions that led the investigation,
connecting reform issues and research on teachers’ beliefs in mathematics
education. I describe the case studies, the participants, and the research
methodology. For each participating teacher, I provide a brief overview
of her mathematics teaching and a summary of broader concerns that
guide her practice. I contrast teachers’ practices and discuss factors that
influence what they do in their classrooms. Finally, I analyze the ways
in which teachers’ ideological vision of their students play a role in their
mathematics teaching.
The results reveal that, working in very different school settings and
dealing with children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, the
teachers in this study interpret reform in different ways. Based on their
value-laden concept of students’ needs, they select which parts of current
calls for change are appropriate to their students. Due to their selections,
these teachers instruct different mathematics to children of different social
and economic background. Thus, I conclude the paper by considering a
fundamental question that arose from the research: are current calls for
change moving mathematics education towards good quality mathematics
for all children? The emerging concern of this study is the issue of equity
in mathematics teaching.
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 55

BELIEFS, REFORM, AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

In the 1980s, the mathematics education community began to look at

reform through a lens that captured a broader picture than the one framed
in the 1960s. The earlier reform effort focused on revising the content of
school mathematics to align it with fundamental concepts in the discip-
line of mathematics (e.g., sets). Recommendations for change during the
1980s addressed not only questions about what to teach, but also about
how to teach it. The assumption was that to improve the state of school
mathematics it was necessary to rethink the goals for mathematics taught
at schools and the approaches used to teach it. Therefore, the role and
importance of teachers in the implementation of reform ideas became of
interest.
Studies of teachers’ beliefs gained attention, with increasing recogni-
tion that beliefs play an important role in teaching (Clark & Peterson,
1986; Thompson, 1984). Trying to understand the role beliefs play in the
way mathematics teachers embrace change, researchers have considered
different theoretical positions. They have attempted to promote and
support change through the modification of teachers’ beliefs about the
nature of learning and the nature of mathematics, children’s mathema-
tical thoughts and school mathematics content itself (Nelson, 1997). These
studies have focused on beliefs about mathematics (what to teach) and its
teaching and learning experiences (how to teach).
Mathematics educators recently have begun to examine other sets
of beliefs that influence mathematics teaching practices.1 Skott (2001)
showed how beliefs not directly related to mathematics teaching also
help one understand mathematics teachers’ practices. In his study, he
considered micro-aspects of the social context of mathematics classrooms.
He presented the teacher’s overarching concern about students’ self-
esteem as justification for mathematics teaching episodes. My research
takes into account the macro-structures of school mathematics and brings
ideology into the picture. It shows that teachers’ beliefs about the needs
of children they teach shape their mathematics teaching and their imple-
mentation of reform changes. Students’ needs emerge in this research as
a concept that influences and justifies the mathematics teachers choose to
teach to children from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
According to Ernest (1991), when reform documents arrive in
classrooms, interpretations hamper changes in teachers’ practices. Inter-
pretations of reform documents are problematic because readers interpret
the ideas promoted in the document according to their personal perspec-
tives and ideological positions. Ernest defines ideology as “an overall,
56 PAOLA SZTAJN

value-rich philosophy or world view, a broad inter-locking system of ideas

and beliefs” (p. 111). This is the working definition of ideology used in the
present study.
In education, the discussion of ideology has moved beyond the dicho-
tomy between a true or false vision of the world. This important concept
comprehends an understanding that ideas are not isolated and are not
value-free. All our personal ideas transmit a vision of the world that is
directly associated with the interests of different social groups. Within this
framework, an ideology “is not a homogenous, coherent set of ideas put
together in a logically consistent construction” (Moreira & Silva, 1995,
p. 25), although it is usually perceived as “the way things obviously are”
by those who support it. Ideologies are complex sets of beliefs about the
world, forged through a person’s life experiences. Particularly, in schools,
ideologies provide “the value system from which decisions about prac-
tical educational matters are made. . . . [They include] beliefs about what
schools should teach, for what ends, and for what reasons” (Eisner, 1992,
p. 302).
In mathematics education, Ernest (1991) connected different philo-
sophies of mathematics with tacit belief-systems that underpin them,
developing what he called a Model of Educational Ideology for Mathe-
matics. Some of the primary elements that he used to characterize his
model (in particular, theory of the child, theory of society, and educational
aims) offer the possibility of understanding mathematics teachers from a
perspective that is broader than the one usually considered in studies on
teacher beliefs. These elements allow one to consider beliefs that influ-
ence one’s mathematics teaching but go beyond mathematics education.
Ernest’s ideological elements served as the starting point for this research
project.

METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES

Participating Teachers and Their Schools

To situate this study within the current discussion of reform in school
mathematics, participating teachers had to be aware of recent reform
proposals. Therefore, part of the selection criteria used in the project was
that teachers know something about the Curriculum and Evaluation Stand-
ards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 1989).2 At the same time, selected
teachers could not be part of any long-term, professional development
change initiative.
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 57

Teresa Walker,3 a third-grade teacher, graduated in 1974 with a major

in elementary education. She saw herself as a “language-arts person.” For
her re-certification, she took a three-week, summer-intensive, graduate,
mathematics education course that focused on problem solving and the use
of manipulatives to teach mathematics in elementary classrooms. During
the summer classes, the NCTM Standards were read and discussed. I
met Teresa when I was auditing this problem-solving course at a nearby
university. We sat near each other and worked on a few tasks together. I
asked Teresa if I could come to her class to conduct my research project.
I explained I wanted to see how she taught mathematics in light of the
changes proposed in the Standards.
Julie Farnsworth, a fourth-grade teacher, was a doctoral student in
elementary education. She earned a B. S. degree in elementary education in
1982 as well as a master’s degree in 1985. I met Julie through courses she
took in mathematics education at the same university as Teresa. Julie was
asked to participate in the project because she was trying to be innovative
in her mathematics teaching. Julie said she was more of “a mathematics
and science person,” and she was aware of the NCTM Standards before
we talked about the project. She was “embarrassed to confess” she had
never really read the 1989 document, but as the research progressed, Julie
reported she was reading it.
When Teresa and Julie first took a mathematics methods course as
part of their pre-service education, the Standards had not been published.
Therefore, Standards-related ideas were not discussed in those courses.
Teresa and Julie had been teaching for 9 years and as practicing classroom
teachers they were trying to figure out how to align their ideas with new
recommendations for school mathematics. The fact that Teresa and Julie
had both taught elementary school for several years was important in
their selection as participants. They were experienced teachers who were
working hard to offer their students what they thought was good mathe-
matics education. Teresa and Julie worked in environments that supported
their classroom practices. Their school peers, superiors, and some parents
considered them to be good teachers.
Teresa and Julie taught in public schools in two small Midwestern
towns. In both Teresa and Julie’s classrooms, all students were Caucasian
and reflected the population in each school. Teresa taught in a Kindergarten
through grade 5 school with 300 students enrolled and had 19 students
in her class. Julie’s taught in a grade 3 through grade 6 school with 500
students enrolled and had 25 children in her class.
These two schools differed with respect to the socioeconomic back-
ground of the children as measured by the percent of children on free and
58 PAOLA SZTAJN

reduced lunches. At Teresa’s school, 40% of the children received free or

reduced lunches, while at Julie’s school only 10% of the children qualified
for these programs. The educational level of the parents, based on the prin-
cipals’ estimations and teachers’ opinions, were also very different in both
schools. While in Teresa’s school most of the parents were low income and
had more manual labor jobs, in Julie’s school the middle-income parents
were doctors, lawyers, and university professors.

Data Collection
I collected data through four weeks of classroom observation spread over
a semester and five semi-structured interviews with each teacher. Other
data collected included classroom handouts and teachers’ planning notes,
as well as interviews with the principal, other teachers, and some parents
at each school.

Classroom observations. I explained to the teachers that I was interested in

understanding their mathematics teaching with respect to what they knew
about current calls for change. Because I was not in the classroom to facil-
itate the implementation of reform ideas, I did not help teachers plan or
evaluate their lessons. In the classroom, I was mostly an observer. I took
extensive field notes, particularly during mathematics lessons and class
discussions. I helped teachers by distributing and collecting materials,
making copies, and grading papers.
When observing a teacher, I stayed in her classroom all day, every day
of the week. To develop a broader picture of the teacher and her practice,
I did not restrict myself to mathematics classes; quite the contrary, I saw
the teachers teaching all subjects. I also stayed at the school during lunch
and breaks, and I attended staff meetings. When I was in the classroom, I
collected copies of all the mathematics worksheets and assignments the
students completed, as well as most of the materials from activities in
other subjects. I collected all tests the teacher gave and a few samples of
students’ work. I also looked at the teacher’s lesson plans, grading books,
and students’ report cards.
Ernest’s (1991) elements constituted my guideline for classroom obser-
vations. When observing the teachers’ practices, I searched for indicators
of their ideological positions by searching for evidence of what would
characterize these teachers’ personal theories about the children they
worked with, the society in which they live and their educational aims and
goals as teachers. These indicators were probed during the interviews. In
the classrooms and during the meetings, I also looked for factors that could
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 59

help me understand the ways in which the teachers were making sense of
reform-related proposals for school mathematics.

Semi-structured interviews. The first interview with each teacher addressed

her educational background and answers to two preliminary beliefs ques-
tionnaires. The other four interviews followed each week spent in the
classroom and dealt mainly with issues raised during the observations. To
develop a set of tentative questions before each meeting, I consulted my
field notes and transcripts of previous meetings. During the interviews, I
asked teachers to justify some of their classroom actions, explaining why
they did what they did at certain observed teaching episodes. I also asked
teachers to further clarify ideas we had talked about, but which I did not
think I had fully understood.
The study of these teachers’ beliefs was anchored strongly on the obser-
vation of their practices. The intention was to “deduce” teachers’ beliefs
from intensive classroom observation and discussion of practice. Never
did the interviews make use of questions such as “what are your beliefs
about . . .” Rather, all questions were based on concrete situations observed
in the classroom. During the interviews, I asked teachers to discuss their
motivations and intents.4

Other interviews and observations. To gather more information about the

contexts in which the teachers worked, I interviewed their principals, other
teachers in the schools, and a few parents. In both schools I met twice with
the principals: the first time was an informal, introductory meeting during
the first week of observation, and the second time was an audio-recorded
interview around the third week of observation. I asked similar questions
of both principals concerning their students’ socioeconomic background,
the profile of parents’ types of jobs, their perceptions of the students’
emotional and academic needs, and their vision of what would constitute
good mathematics teaching. In each school, I also observed two other
teachers, from the same grade level of the teacher in the study, teaching
a mathematics lesson. Finally by phone, I talked to parents of five students
in each class.

Data Analysis
Data collection and analysis in this research constituted part of a
progressive problem solving (Erickson, 1986). I was constantly checking
on the work done, gathering more information, looking at special cases,
planning, trying out tentative solutions (interpretations or explanations)
and checking back on the work done. The data analysis began with
60 PAOLA SZTAJN

analytical notes I wrote while keeping field notes. Doubts that arose
from these notes guided the next round of observations and interviews.
I was constantly looking for different ways of revisiting with the teachers
themes that caught my attention, and for ways of asking the teachers for
justifications and more explanations concerning their practices.
A second phase of the data analysis process took place when I left
the field. Although I had developed initial ideas about the teachers and
their perspectives while collecting data, I did not begin to code the data
systematically until I had all my transcripts and field notes in hand. I used
seven major descriptive categories to code the data initially – the teacher,
the students, the classroom, the school, parents, general educational goals,
and mathematics. With this organization, I used data triangulation to
“clarify meaning, verifying the repeatability of an observation or interpre-
tation” (Stake, 1994, p. 241). I also used constant comparison procedures,
searching for the meaning of every piece of information (Glaser & Strauss,
1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I compared all pieces of coded data
with each other. I looked for ways in which beliefs beyond mathematics
influence teachers’ adaptation of reform ideas into practice.
Looking between and within categories for each teacher, I developed
a motto that characterized her teaching, coordinating her perspective
on education in general and mathematics teaching in particular. I then
constructed, for each teacher, a justified description of her practice, that
is, a summary of her teaching combined with her explanations for specific
actions. I called these descriptions “portraits”. The portraits had the
mottoes as the connecting lines that organized the picture. Each teacher
read her own portrait and agreed with the justified description provided for
her practice.
Considering both teachers’ portraits, I compared and contrasted the
two cases. I merged different descriptive categories into new themes that
seemed to guide both teachers’ adaptation of reform ideas into their prac-
tices. All data was once again checked with these themes in mind. It was in
these searches that the concept of students’ needs emerged as an important
factor in the teaching of these two teachers. This concept includes teachers’
beliefs about children, society, and education. It is a concept that goes
beyond mathematics. The concept of student needs allows for the inter-
pretation of the way teachers adapted proposed changes for mathematics
instruction.
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 61

THE CASE STUDIES

Teresa M. Walker
Teresa’s mathematics teaching. For Teresa, the Standards are a list of
content topics for the mathematics program and it represents the most
current version of the list teachers need to cover in mathematics classes.
She says her school program has a list similar to the Standards in that it
contains about the same topics – which she tries to teach. Teresa believes
current calls for changes in school mathematics do not bring any new
demand for her mathematics teaching because her school has already
added topics like problem solving to the curriculum. For Teresa, teachers
at her school, who follow the program and teach what they are supposed to,
already have their practices aligned with NCTM recommendations. Teresa
feels she does not need to be particularly worried about reform – she is
already implementing it.
Teresa claims that teachers have “stepping stones” for what children
must learn in mathematics at different grades, and she thinks it is the
teachers’ duty to follow this path. In third-grade, mathematics has many
rules that students need to learn. Therefore, one important goal for Teresa
is to teach her students all these rules. She must also help them “remember”
– a key word in her classroom. Teresa tells her students, for example, that
numbers under 50 are hard ones when rounding to the nearest hundred
because they need to “remember” these numbers go all the way to 0.
Students also need to “remember” what to do when they have to add and
carry to the tens place or when they are borrowing in subtraction. For
example, when Teresa had a list of subtraction problems written in vertical
form on the board, including 60–34, she told students:
Now, okay class, let me remind you of a few important things that might be rusty. It is
alright not to borrow when you do not need to. A mistake many of you make, like in the
last exercise [60–34], is to make zero minus 4 equals 4. Remember that we cannot change
the order of the numbers and make 4 minus zero. You need to take the bottom number
away from the top number. If you can’t take away, you cannot take the top number from
the bottom. You need to remember to borrow from the tens place to the ones place. (Field
notes)

Teresa works hard on what she sees as the teacher’s part in the students’
learning process. She is careful about presenting in a “very clear way” the
topics to be studied; she explains examples and goes over the exercises
with the children. She states the rules and helps students remember them.
Teresa asks questions and guides the students through the concepts. She
selects activities and worksheets from the book for her students, and she
helps them do the work. Not only does Teresa explain to the students what
62 PAOLA SZTAJN

they need to do, but she is also always willing to repeat patiently any
explanation as many times as needed.
In general, Teresa expects her students to work as hard as she does
and do their “personal best”. In mathematics, it is important for Teresa
that her students try to solve exercises and problems, and that they persist,
even if they make mistakes, because “learning comes with practice”. In
Teresa’s class, practice takes two different forms. One of them is solving
word problems. Teresa says children develop their brains when they solve
word problems. The second type of practice that Teresa gives her students
in mathematics is drill. “Some people believe that drill isn’t necessary”,
Teresa explains, “but in some things drill is necessary”. For Teresa, not all
topics in mathematics need to be memorized. The ones that do, however,
demand a lot of drill, and efficient drill requires organization. Teresa
explains to her students that the human mind needs order to work properly.
“Our brain”, she tells children, “cannot work in a cluttered environment”.
For Teresa, problem solving, critical thinking, and other higher-order
thinking skills are also important for her students. “I think that all educators
would agree with that”, she notes. The difficulty in teaching analytical
thinking, Teresa says, is managing to teach and still control the discipline
in the room.
As a teacher, the things that I get very frustrated about when we try to work on the higher
thinking skills [is that] (. . .) sometimes you have such a large range of levels that the kids
are dealing with, that when you go to do an activity . . . It’s like a third of them are with
you, a third of them maybe has an idea of what you are doing, and another third has no idea
of what you are doing. And you are lost. I think that’s probably the same kind of frustration
that most educators are running into, the discipline of the kids. (Interview #2)

Situating Teresa’s mathematics teaching. Teresa values discipline and

responsibility, and she wants to teach her students to be well behaved
and responsible. Good behavior and responsibility, according to Teresa,
are necessary when one needs to get a job and function in society. Teresa’s
classroom is usually quiet, and she likes her students to be quiet and orga-
nized. She wants them to feel they are in a productive working environment
where they can focus on their tasks, working hard to achieve their goals.
Teresa believes this environment is different from the one her students
experience at home.
Some of my kids have such crappy and disordered home lives, I don’t want school to be
like home for them. (. . .) I want my class to be pleasant, I want it to be safe, organized, I
want them to feel good. But this isn’t home, and it shouldn’t be home. (Interview #3)

In general, Teresa believes structure and order are beneficial for all
people – and mathematics is good for teaching this because it is structured
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 63

and has rules to be followed. For her students, in particular, Teresa thinks
this is even more fundamental because they live in a community that lacks
such organization. Teresa classifies the community as “mobile and tran-
sient” due to the fact that these children come from “unstable families”,
she says referring to parents’ marital status, personal relationships, and job
situations.
The school principal substantiates Teresa’s view and indicates that over
50% of the school children live in one-parent households or have gone
through at least one divorce situation. “The percentage of our students
living with original moms and dads”, he says, “is very, very small”. Among
the families where there are two parents at home, both parents work outside
the home in 95% of the cases. Concerning the types of jobs parents have,
the principal says:
Most of our population is the manual labor type population rather than the professional
labor. We have some schools in this system where, maybe 80% of your mothers and fathers
are college educated, professional people. That is not our case here. I haven’t really gone
back and figured out, but I bet you would be surprised at how high a percentage of our
parents are not college or even high school graduates. (Interview with principal)

The small number of children from two-parent households and the

lack of parent participation in their children’s education are among the
main problems Teresa sees at her school. According to her, family influ-
ence is fundamental for children’s performance in formal education. For
Teresa, because most parents at this school are not really involved in their
children’s upbringing, teachers have a bigger task to accomplish. Although
“all children are children”, what is part of a child’s education varies from
school to school, depending on socioeconomic background. For the “poor”
children, Teresa says, teachers “have to teach them a lot more” because
they have to teach “a lot of the social skills too”.
I think all the children have the same needs. I mean, the kids need to be cared for, they need
to be loved, they need to learn some things. Okay. So I think those needs are universal,
whether you are talking about the lowest income kids or the very wealthy kids. But then I
think these kids have . . . . Well, probably they still have the same needs. It is just that their
needs that aren’t taken care of at home, we take care of them here at school. (Interview #3)

Teresa’s motto: Teaching to form responsible citizens. The overarching

issue that emerges from Teresa’s teaching, which serves as a connecting
thread among her perceptions of society, schooling, and mathematics
education is her concern with responsibility and order. She considers this
issue especially relevant for her students, due to her perception of their
background, their needs, and their future role in American society.
Teresa is a responsible person who sees teaching as a job in which
she has defined goals and tasks. For Teresa, working hard and following
64 PAOLA SZTAJN

guidelines that tell her what to do are the keys to fulfilling her duties. From
Teresa’s perspective, most individuals follow working patterns similar to
hers – external goals, hard work, accountability. In her view, these students,
probably, will need to deal with a similar working situation. Because she is
concerned with helping her students become responsible citizens, Teresa
teaches in a style that is compatible with the conditions under which she
works. She sets goals and tasks for her students, she expects them to
work hard and be accountable. This is true for every subject in Teresa’s
classroom, including mathematics.
For Teresa, her students have many needs and attending to these needs
is her main duty. Using her personal values about family to judge her
students’ background, Teresa says these children come from unstable,
chaotic homes, which are not good environments for children. Moreover,
parents are not willing to participate in the children’s education and
they do not provide the appropriate experiences children should have
before coming to school. Teresa’s personal beliefs about her students’
lives outside school are based on a cultural deficit perspective in which
certain children are believed to bring less to school. Irvine (1990), for
example, describes a cultural deficit perspective as the assumption that
some children, because of cultural and environmental differences, lack the
adaptations and knowledge necessary to succeed in school. Teresa says
that to educate children from the low socioeconomic background she has
to bridge their social gap. It is her duty to help students become more orga-
nized and responsible. This social education is the most important issue for
Teresa as a teacher, and she gives it much of her time and attention, often
taking time from content-oriented teaching.
In mathematics, although Teresa believes higher-order thinking skills
are important, basic facts, drill, and practice are at the core of what she
perceives as her students’ needs. Mathematics, as Teresa sees it, plays an
important role in helping her students be more “mentally organized” and
ready for their role in the workplace. Even though Teresa knows about the
“list” of topics that is in the NCTM Standards, she does not have time
to teach all the topics. Therefore, she gives up problem solving and other
higher-order thinking skills to focus on the teaching and learning of mathe-
matical rules and procedures that demand rote learning through practice.
Most important to Teresa is the fact that learning and following rules in
a responsible and organized way is what her students need in order to
find their place in society – an approach that would more closely resemble
Ernest’s (1991) pragmatist profile.
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 65

Julie Farnsworth
Julie’s mathematics teaching. When Julie joined the research project, she
said all she knew about the NCTM Standards was that “they focus more
on process than on product”. Because she considered her mathematics
teaching process oriented, Julie hoped she was already incorporating
into her practice some of the current reform ideas. For Julie, focusing
on the process meant that teachers should pay attention to what their
students were doing instead of the final answers they gave. As the research
progressed, Julie thought she could improve her teaching further by imple-
menting some of the suggestions she was reading in the NCTM document.
Nevertheless, she was satisfied to conclude that many of her teaching ideas
were aligned with the reform recommendations.
The Standards is really helping me re-focus my teaching. I think that I always knew that
I wanted to teach in a problem-solving, creative-type way. But in math I’ve always been
more tied to the textbook than in any other subject. Just because of that belief in getting
the basic facts down, which I still think is important. But I think that I really like the de-
emphasis on, oh, doing thirty-five long-division problems and things like that. (Interview
#3)

Julie thinks students need to be interested and happy in order to learn.

Therefore, she tries to make mathematics fun and her students happy
by incorporating manipulatives and problem solving in her mathematics
lessons. She also teaches through projects. Beyond teaching mathematics
content knowledge, Julie believes projects are empowering experiences
that teach students responsibility, persistence, and collaboration. During
this study, Julie’s students worked on different projects such as construc-
tion of toothpick skyscrapers and bridges; making and selling of tie-dye
T-shirts; tessellations; experiments for a science fair; problem-solving
books to exchange with another fourth-grade class. Each project lasted a
few weeks, and sometimes the children worked on two or three projects at
the same time.
According to Julie, her students need to experience sustained problem-
solving, “they need more things that are not just one-shot deals”. Julie
claims that problem solving is important for all children because a person
who is a problem solver is not afraid of facing challenges. “And math
naturally lends itself to problem solving”, she explains. Julie says that
children have different ways of solving problems in mathematics. She
always accepts children’s different solutions to a problem and asks students
to share their ways with the class. With these actions, Julie expects that
students will learn to search for meaningful ways of solving problems.
In Julie’s class, even routine word problems generate debate among
students. Most children like to present their ways and tell the class how
66 PAOLA SZTAJN

they solved a certain problem, how they carried on a specific mental

computation. For example,

Julie: Let’s look at this problem. Our class has sold 28 T-shirts so far,
at $5 a shirt. How much money do we have?
Students: 140.
Julie: That’s right, but how did you find it out? Moses?
Moses: I did 20 times 5 is 100 and 8 times 5 is 40, so it’s 140.
John: I only did 28 times 5.
Lisa: I counted by 5s.
Ann: You could also count by 28s, and add it 5 times together.
Leah: If you’ll do that, you could just find 28 plus 28, you add that to
itself, and then you add 28 more.
John: If you just multiply by 5 it’s faster.
Julie: Well, that is the beauty of multiplication, isn’t it? But you all
solved the problem. (Field notes)

Although Julie likes to teach mathematics through projects and problem

solving, she believes it is also important that children know the basic
facts. “I still teach computation”, she says. Before children can work on
more advanced problems and explore richer mathematical situations, Julie
believes it is to their advantage to automatically recall their facts; to learn
facts, Julie claims that children need to practice them. However, Julie
observes that basic facts are not a problem in the school where she now
teaches because children know them.

Situating Julie’s mathematics teaching. Julie believes that parents at this

school have one main interest: they want to know their children are happy
at school. Julie enjoys this expectation of parents because it is aligned
with her idea that, to learn, children must be happily involved in what they
are doing. Therefore, Julie feels that this school is especially receptive to
her projects, the fun things she does in the classroom, and the interesting
activities she selects for her students.
Julie claims she has always managed to do some projects in her classes,
in whichever school she taught. However, at this school, Julie notices
she can spend a larger part of her time doing the type of activities she
enjoys because she has to deal with fewer problems, and worry less about
teaching rote basics. “My students this year are quick to catch basic skills”,
she observes. For Julie, children at this school learn their basic facts at
home. “This is a dedicated group of parents”, she explains. Previously,
Julie taught at schools where children came from lower socioeconomic
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 67

backgrounds, and she felt she had to spend more time teaching children
basic knowledge and skills.
When I taught at a school where children were poorer, [the kids] needed to become literate
and numerate. I mean, really, that was a goal for me to, for them to be literate and numerate
because their low socioeconomic background went hand in hand with their skills. So I
had to work on all these things with those low kids. With wealthier students it’s different
because they have that background before school. (Interview #1)

Julie, like Teresa, believes that in schools where children come from
lower socioeconomic backgrounds, teachers have to teach a lot of social
skills. For both teachers, teaching social skills is a main role of schools.
Julie says that responsibility, for example, is something she wants to teach
all her students. However, in the school she is now teaching, most children
learn responsibility in their homes. Children are accustomed to having and
following due dates, to knowing that they need to complete their assign-
ments and turn them in, and to doing what they are expected to do. These
children do not need practice on skills or social teaching and, therefore,
can explore more sophisticated content issues.
Julie acknowledges that there are many other differences between
this school and lower socioeconomic schools where she taught before.
Concerning discipline, for example, Julie often mentions that her class this
year has many behavioral problems. She thinks her students are spoiled,
immature, and they do not respect others as much as they should. Never-
theless, Julie explains that these discipline problems are minor and that
dealing with them is really not too time consuming or too serious.
The principal supports Julie’s view and says that she does not deal with
a lot of behavioral problems.
Most of these children come from very good homes and they have already learned, by the
time they come to school, that one does not solve a problem by fighting. Rather, one talks
and makes a good argument to defend a position. These children have learned to respect
each other. (Field notes from informal interview with Principal)

The principal estimates that 70% or more of the children at this

school come from homes where parents have at least a two-year college
degree. “We don’t collect information on parents, but this is a very
affluent neighborhood, and many parents are doctors, lawyers, professors,
administrators, and business people”.
For Julie, at this school, parents are involved in their children’s educa-
tion and the children know it. All parents, mostly in couples, come to
parent-teacher conferences. Parents volunteer to help in the classroom,
participate in field trips and talk to teachers about their children’s educa-
tion. The principal recognizes that this intense contact with parents is a
68 PAOLA SZTAJN

characteristic of the school. She also says that parents have high expecta-
tions for learning at school. These are professional parents who want their
children to have what they consider to be the best possible education. They
push for higher-order thinking skills, claims the principal, because “they
see at their jobs that you don’t just make rote decisions”.

Julie’s motto: Teaching to promote the growth of happy individuals. The

overarching issue that emerges when observing and talking to Julie is her
strong desire to see her students having a good time at school. Julie wants
her students to enjoy, and this idea guides her actions and her teaching.
People strive to be happy, and happy people are better citizens of the world.
Furthermore, happy people are better learners. To make sure her students
will like being in her class, Julie tries to prepare interesting activities and
organize projects in which the children will have fun.
Julie has a clear understanding that the school where she works is an
important factor in her search for “happy teaching”. Julie feels that at this
school, more than at others, she can concentrate on giving her class projects
and fun activities. Despite routine behavioral problems, her students come
from environments where they learn how to be polite and responsible, and
she does not have to worry about teaching these values to her pupils. Julie
also does not have to teach these children the “basics” because they either
know them from home or, in case they do not, parents take the responsi-
bility for seeing that their children learn them. Julie can concentrate on the
content she needs to teach her students.
Julie’s perception of her teaching and of what she “can teach” to
children from different socioeconomic backgrounds depends on what they
“bring” to school with them. Like Teresa, Julie operates within the deficit
perspective. However, because she currently works with children from
upper socioeconomic backgrounds, Julie considers that these children
are ready to experience problem-solving projects developing higher order
thinking skills. In mathematics, Julie’s focus is on a more process-oriented
instruction, which is most compatible with Ernest’s (1991) vision of
a progressive mathematics educator. Julie’s view of mathematics as a
process, however, relies on the assumption that knowing the “basics” are
already met.

Contrasts and Emerging Theme

Teresa and Julie thought their practices were aligned with current recom-
mendations for change in school mathematics. Teresa’s view of reform was
the newest list of mathematics topics teachers are supposed to follow, while
Julie’s perspective of reform placed a greater emphasis on mathematical
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 69

processes. However, both believed they were implementing reform ideas

that were appropriate to their students. In fact, they believed they had
already been implementing such ideas before this study begun, and this
belief did not change during the investigation.
To contrast Teresa’s and Julie’s different ways of teaching mathe-
matics, and the beliefs that support their teaching, one could choose to
use Raymond’s (1997) 5-level scales, which categorize teachers’ practices
and beliefs about mathematics, mathematics teaching, and mathematics
learning. On the one hand, Teresa would be at the traditional end of the
scales, where mathematics is believed to be a collection of facts and rules,
students are believed to passively receive mathematical knowledge from
teachers and teaching means following the book and structuring lessons.
On the other hand, Julie would tend to the nontraditional side of the scales,
where mathematics is problem driven, students learn through problem-
solving explorations and teaching means selecting tasks based on students’
interests and asking students to justify their ideas.
These classification categories do not adequately explain the similari-
ties in beliefs between Teresa and Julie. Both teachers believe children can
only solve problems when they know the basic facts. They also believe
some children bring “the basics” from home, while others do not. Further-
more, those who do not bring “the basics” do not seem to bring necessary
social skills from home either. Both Teresa and Julie operate within the
deficit model, in which they perceive students’ needs based on personal
beliefs and values. Therefore, to understand Teresa and Julie it is necessary
to consider beliefs that go beyond mathematics. Teresa and Julie teach
differently because of the way they perceive students who come from
different socioeconomic backgrounds.
As a teacher, Teresa aims at teaching her students the social values
and norms their families are failing to provide them. Combining beliefs
about the needs of the children she works with, American society, and
education, Teresa teaches to transform lower socioeconomic students into
good citizens. She believes what these children need is discipline, rules
and facts. Julie holds similar beliefs to Teresa, but because her students
come from a higher socioeconomic background, she teaches higher-
order thinking through educationally rich projects. Both Teresa and Julie
combine their value-laden visions of students, of parents, and of society
into the emerging concept of students’ needs.

IDEOLOGY, REFORM, AND STUDENTS’ NEEDS

In a U.S. elementary school, students’ needs are part of teachers’ daily

concerns, discussion and goals. After all, should not all teachers work
70 PAOLA SZTAJN

toward fulfilling such needs? Defining what these needs are, however,
is ideological in nature. Maybe due to the fact that elementary school
teachers have a broad view of their students, they take different factors
into consideration when defining what is necessary for each child. These
factors include what children know and what knowledge they are believed
to lack, their previous experiences and what they bring to school, what
they need to succeed later in life and what jobs they are likely to have.
Teachers’ judgments of such factors are not value free; they are based on
teachers’ own beliefs about what is valued in society, what children’s lives
are like outside school and the appropriateness of their out of school exper-
iences. These judgments are based on teachers’ value-rich philosophies
and world-views, that is, their ideologies.
In mathematics education, the concept of students’ needs provide a con-
nection between one’s ideological vision of the world and what is selected
to be taught in elementary classrooms. It relates beliefs beyond mathe-
matics to what is considered appropriate mathematics instruction. It is a
venue through which personal values influence elementary mathematics
instruction, combining Ernest’s (1991) primary ideological elements such
as teachers’ theory of the child, society, and education.
In an era of reform, teachers’ concepts of what their students need
shape their adaptation to and adoption of reform rhetoric. While different
educational ideas can be considered important, and different perspectives
on mathematics teaching can all be considered pertinent in general, when
it comes to prioritizing them in the classroom, teachers’ concepts of what
their particular students need come into play. Ideological decisions, about
what within the reform rhetoric fits particular children, are then made.
There is enough vagueness in current reform documents to allow teachers
to follow only the recommendations they consider appropriate to partic-
ular teaching situations. Different interpretations of these documents are
possible and teachers do not need to change to believe they are teaching
according to current reform visions. Teachers can teach very different
mathematics, with very different justifications, and think they are acting
according to the current recommendations that apply to “their children”
with “particular need”.
Reform documents such as the NCTM Standards, which intend to
serve as models of what mathematics teaching should look like, do not
challenge teachers’ concept of what their students need when learning
mathematics. Because the concept of students’ need is constructed upon
ideological beliefs beyond mathematics, challenging it would require one
to challenge a person’s vision of the world. Current calls for change do
not transform teachers’ ideological visions; quite the contrary, teachers’
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 71

ideological visions shape the possibilities of interpreting and implementing

reform.

Mathematics for All, but Which Mathematics?

The result of this decade of work, beginning with the publication of the Curriculum and
Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics in 1989, is a national vision of a powerful
mathematics education for all students, regardless of color, ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
primary language, or gender (Lappan, 1999, p. 576).

When I first started this project, I thought I would answer my questions

by describing how beliefs that go beyond mathematics influence “typical”
elementary classrooms, discussing how the teachers implemented reform
ideas in mathematics. However, the emerging concept of students’ needs,
as well as teachers’ value judgments used in its definition, brought to
the surface a more challenging matter that permeated my experiences
in these two classrooms: lack of equity in mathematics education. The
cases of Teresa and Julie provide an opportunity to consider the issue of
mathematics for all. Can reform documents promote such vision?
I want to make clear that Teresa and Julie are the heroes of the stories
presented – never the villains. They are not, in a Machiavellian way, trying
to hold students back, lessen their chances of going to college, or ensure
that they will remain where they are in the socioeconomic spectrum. Quite
the contrary, both of them use their best judgments when defining what
their students need, and once they form this concept, they direct their work
and all their efforts toward meeting these needs. Most teachers try to offer
students what they believe is best for the children’s future. Their decisions
of what is best, however, are value-laden; they are mediated by the distinct
social contexts in which teachers operate and the different children they
teach.
In the cases of Teresa and Julie, because their students come from
different socioeconomic backgrounds, they are learning different mathe-
matics. Mathematics can represent learning as order or learning as fun.
Children are also learning different social behavior patterns through
mathematics. Mathematics can mean following rules or thinking critically
or creatively. In these case studies, the differences observed in mathe-
matics instruction went along socioeconomic lines.5 Teachers’ values and
expectations are connected to their perceptions of students’ lives and needs
according to socioeconomic variables. Thus the emerging issue from this
research mirrors the current debate about equity in mathematics education.
We believe that all children can learn mathematics, but which mathe-
matics are children from different socioeconomic backgrounds having the
opportunity to learn?
72 PAOLA SZTAJN

Anyon (1981) reported that students from different social-class back-

grounds were exposed to different types of mathematical knowledge.
Working in five New Jersey schools (two working-class, one middle-class,
one affluent professional, and one executive elite school), she concluded
that as students’ socioeconomic level increased, instruction went from
rote, to creative, to analytical. Oakes (1990) found that poorer children
experienced different mathematics and had less access to science and
mathematics in their curriculum. Using data from the National Science
Foundation’s 1985–1986 National Survey of Science and Mathematics
Education, she argued that, during the elementary grades, the experi-
ences of children from low-income and from more affluent families differ
in “small but significant ways”. These experiences become “strikingly
different” by the time the students reach secondary schools. In partic-
ular, Oakes reported that low-income students have less-extensive and
less-demanding mathematics programs available in their schools.
Secada’s (1992) review of research dealing with children from
preschool to high school showed that students from low socioeconomic
backgrounds were the lowest achieving in mathematics. He observed that,
many times, people seem to accept different achievement levels across
different socioeconomic backgrounds as being normal, natural, inevitable,
explainable, or even acceptable.
In this research, I observed well-intentioned teachers who operated
within a deficit model, accepting different expectations for children from
low socioeconomic backgrounds as natural. These teachers worked within
contexts that supported their practices and they were viewed as profes-
sionals by their peers, administrators, and students’ parents. Although
there is no data to support the claim that others in these schools shared
Teresa’s and Julie’s ideological vision, teachers and administrators shared
their perceptions about children and their concerns for students’ needs.
Disputing claims that reform-oriented curricula may not be beneficial to
all students, Boaler (2002) argued that teachers’ mediation is fundamental
to implementing equitable mathematics instruction. In her study, teachers’
beliefs seemed particularly important. The teachers Boaler presented
differed from Teresa and Julie in that they believed that reform-oriented,
open-ended mathematics could benefit all students. They believed it was
their job to make this type of mathematics accessible to all. These teachers
refused to let others train them in the “pedagogy of poverty” (Haberman,
1991); they refused to let children’s home lives impede the exploration
of rich mathematics. As a result, they increased student achievement and
reduced inequalities among youngsters.
 BEYOND MATHEMATICS 73

Boaler’s results strengthen the importance of understanding teachers’

beliefs and practices in the study of reform. They show that teachers who
are committed to the principle that all students can learn mathematics at
a significant level can make it happen in their classrooms. For teachers
like Teresa and Julie, however, committing to such principle requires a
different vision of the world, a different perception of what students need,
and a different ideological interpretation of reform documents.
To promote mathematical power for all, mathematics educators need to
move beyond the production of reform documents, or at least the produc-
tion of umbrella documents (Apple, 1992) under which all can fit. As
Stigler & Hiebert (1999) remind us, teaching is not a simple skill but a
complex cultural activity. Features of teaching that are recommended in
reform documents such as the NCTM Standards are easily misinterpreted
when one lacks references to “the system of teaching in which they are
embedded or the wider cultural beliefs that support them” (p. 108).
Our current reform rhetoric does not sound the same to all ears – and
we may discuss whether it ever will. Still, if we want to have a bigger
chance of promoting changes in the school mathematics experience of all
children, offering all of them what we see as best mathematics, we need
to increase our efforts in the direction of clarifying some of the underlying
ideological assumptions that support current calls for change in mathe-
matics education. What are the ideological underpinnings of our current
vision of reform? This fundamental question will need to be addressed if
we are to educate teachers who can successfully promote equal, powerful
mathematics truly for all children.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation conducted

at Indiana University under the supervision of Dr. Frank K. Lester, Jr.
The study was supported by a scholarship from Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq, Brazilian Government.
The author would like to thank Frank K. Lester and Tom Cooney for
their comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

NOTES
1 The relation between beliefs and practice is dialogical and does not have a one-way
causal direction. Examining the ways in which this relation functions, however, goes
beyond the scope of this article, which focuses instead on revealing different factors that
make up this relation.
74 PAOLA SZTAJN

2 From here on, when using the term Standards I am referring to the 1989 NCTM docu-
ment. Although additional documents were published in 1991 and 1995, I did not require
participating teachers to know them. This research was conducted prior to the release of
the 2000 Principles and Standards for School Mathematics.
3 All names are pseudonyms.
4 There is a lot of discussion about the consistency between beliefs and practice (teachers
who do not “walk their talk”). For me, beliefs and practice are consistent – if in a study we
find they are not, than I think we asked the wrong questions.
5 Since this project focused only on the teachers, no comments can be made about the
students’ assimilation or resistance to the reproductive structure in place at their schools.

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University of Georgia
Mathematics Education
105 Aderhold Hall
Athens, CA 30602-7124
USA