This paper presents an exploratory study of English and Swedish teachers' perspectives on the role of homework in year-one children's learning of number. In order to ensure cultural integrity, data were analysed independently by two colleagues in each context. Analyses yielded three broad but cross-culturally common themes reflecting culturally…

Much comparative research into education-related beliefs has exploited questionnaires developed in one culture for use in another. This has been particularly the case in mathematics education, the focus of this paper. In so doing, researchers have tended to assume that translation alone is sufficient to warrant a reliable and valid instrument for…

This paper presents a comparative analysis of prospective elementary teachers' mathematical problem solving-related beliefs in Cyprus and England. Twenty-four participants, twelve from a well-regarded university in each country, were interviewed qualitatively at the exit point of their undergraduate teacher education studies. Analyses revealed…

In this paper we report on a small-scale comparative examination of prospective elementary teachers' beliefs about problem-solving in Cyprus and England. First year undergraduate students (13 from Cyprus and 14 from England) from a well-regarded university in each country were qualitatively interviewed at the commencement of their respective…

This paper outlines the iterative processes by which a multinational team of researchers developed a low-inference framework for the analysis of video recordings of mathematics lessons drawn from Flemish Belgium, England, Finland, Hungary and Spain. Located within a theoretical framework concerning learning as the negotiation of meaning, we…

Research, from all around the world, has shown that teachers' actions are informed by a variety of factors, including long-held and frequently unarticulated traditions about teaching and learning, systemic expectations of the processes of schooling, available textbooks, traditions of teacher education, school cultures, assessment traditions and…

This paper reports on a small-scale EU-funded study of the teaching of mathematics in the age range 10-14 in Flanders, England, Hungary, and Spain. Drawing on video recordings of sequences of lessons taught on standard topics, and exploiting a coding schedule developed from live observations in each country, the inferable learning objectives of,…

Questions the mathematics curriculum and why mathematics is taught to children. Emphasizes that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to mathematics education in U.S. is the continuing tradition of justifying mathematics on the basis of its usefulness. Argues that this is a myth which has been peddled for decades. (ASK)

Reports on a statistical study of English and Hungarian teachers' conceptions of mathematics and its teaching. Distributed questionnaires to 200 English and 40 Hungarian mathematics teachers. Significant similarities emerged with both countries sharing, with similar strengths, a general conception of mathematics teaching that incorporates the…