Teaching Mathematics in Two Independent School Contexts: the construction of "good practice"

Abstract

This paper compares constructions of mathematics teaching and learning practices in two geographically different school contexts. It looks at the constructions of "good practice" within the schooling communities across these two contexts and describes some similarities and differences between them. It provides an interpretation of these differently constructed practices as being contingent on the socially situated contexts of the two schools and schooling communities. Consequently, it problematizes the rhetoric of the reformist movement in education premised on slogans for "better education" which tend to universalize "good" or "progressive" practices, and which often do not consider the complex and contingent nature of school mathematics discourse and practice, or the socio-cultural and historical differences in contexts of schooling.