Educating teachers about values

in mathematics education:

Alan J. Bishop
Faculty of Education
Monash University
Melbourne
Australia
<alan.bishop@education.monash.edu.au>
Values and mathematics education
Mathematics educators are increasingly being
challenged about the goals to which
mathematics education should aim: technology,
societal demands, scientific development,
economic growth….
To a large degree these goals are all about the
values we should be inculcating in our students.
Values are the deep affective qualities which
education aims to foster through the teaching of
mathematics.
Values and mathematics education

Values are not the same as beliefs, although the two

constructs are related, and there is much research on
beliefs in mathematics education but little on values.

One way to relate them is to see values as ‘beliefs in

action’, that is, one may hold several beliefs, but when
one is faced with choices it is one’s values which
determine which choice one accepts.
Beliefs are the support or justification for one’s choices.
Values and mathematics education
There is a widespread misunderstanding
that mathematics is a value-free subject.

Whereas it is relatively easy and common

in the teaching of humanities, arts subjects
and perhaps also the sciences to discuss
the development of values, this is not the
case at present in mathematics teaching.
Values and mathematics education
Whenever teaching takes place, choices are
made, which are based on, and therefore reveal,
certain values.
From a research perspective, there is only a
limited understanding at present of what values
are being transmitted, and of how effectively
they are being transmitted.
Perhaps this is because most values appear to
be taught and learnt implicitly rather than
explicitly in mathematics classrooms.
Values and mathematics education
Therefore there are new research questions
which need to be asked such as:
What values are teachers of mathematics
teaching?
To what extent can mathematics teachers
gain control over their own values
teaching?
What values are students learning from
their teachers?
Values and mathematics education
What values are implicitly and explicitly being
transmitted or ‘shaped’ through curricula and
textbooks?
Is it possible to develop more effective
mathematics teaching through the values
education of teachers, and of student teachers?
To what extent can teachers be helped to teach
other values than those they currently teach?
Values in mathematics education
are of three basic kinds
Mathematical values: values which have developed as
the subject has developed within the particular culture.

General educational values: values associated with the

norms of the particular society, and of the particular
educational institution.

Mathematics educational values: values embedded in

the curriculum, textbooks, classroom practices, etc. as a
result of the other sets of values.
 White’s (1959) background
research
My research approach to these issues has initially
been to focus on mathematical values, and I
have found White’s (1959) three component
analysis and terminology very helpful:

Ideological values: ‘rationalism’ and ‘empiricism’

Sentimental values: ‘control’ and ‘progress’

Sociological values: ‘openness’ and ‘mystery’.

 Valuing Rationalism means

emphasising argument, reasoning, logical

analysis, and explanations.

It concerns theory, and hypothetical and

abstract situations, and promotes
universalist thinking.
 Valuing Objectism means
emphasising objectifying, concretising, and
applying ideas in mathematics.

It favours analogical thinking, symbolising,

and the presentation and use of data.

It also promotes materialism and

determinism.
 Valuing Control means

emphasising the power of mathematical

knowledge through mastery of rules, facts,
procedures and established criteria.

It also promotes security in knowledge, and

the ability to predict.
 Valuing Progress means

emphasising the ways that mathematical

ideas grow and develop, through
alternative theories, development of new
methods and the questioning of existing
ideas.

It also promotes the values of individual

liberty and creativity.
 Valuing Openness means

emphasising the democratisation of knowledge,

through demonstrations, proofs and individual
explanations.

Verification of hypotheses, clear articulation and

critical thinking are also significant, as are a
willingness to consider alternatives and the
transparency of procedures and assumptions.
 Valuing Mystery means

emphasising the wonder, fascination, and

mystique of mathematical ideas.

It promotes thinking about the origins and

nature of knowledge and of the creative
process, as well as the abstractness and
dehumanised nature of scientific and
mathematical knowledge.
Findings from the VAMP research :
www.education.monash.edu.au/research/
groups/smte/index.html

The teachers found it difficult to discuss

values in relation to mathematics.
The teachers had many goals in planning
for mathematics lessons.
The teachers hold their own values about
mathematics and about mathematics
education.
 Findings from the VAMP
research
The teachers chose to make explicit
certain mathematics or mathematics
education values or they ‘showed’ them
implicitly.
It was easier for teachers to think about
and recognise the values they were
teaching, than to implement new values.
 Teachers’ values and practices in
mathematics and science

This study involved both primary and secondary

teachers who each taught mathematics and
science.
13 primary and 17 secondary teachers
volunteered to answer our questionnaires.
The questionnaires involved ranking the six
values, and also rating the teaching time spent
on the values
Primary teachers’ values and practices in
mathematics and science

Concerning Ideology, they prefer

Empiricism over Rationalism for both
science and mathematics. Their reported
practices also show this.
For the Sentimental (attitudinal) dimension,
Control is much less favoured than
Progress for both subjects, but the
practices are reversed.
Primary teachers’ values and practices in
mathematics and science

Another main difference is in the Sociological

dimension where Openness and Mystery
reverse their positions with the two subjects, the
first being more favoured than the second in
mathematics and the reverse in science.

However this difference does not translate to the

practices, with the science practices being
ranked much more like the mathematics
practices.
Secondary teachers’ values and practices in
mathematics and science

Concerning the Ideological dimension,

they favour Rationalism for mathematics
and Empiricism for science, disagreeing
with their primary colleagues.

However for the Sentimental dimension,

the secondary teachers largely agree with
their primary colleagues
Secondary teachers’ values and practices in
mathematics and science

For the Sociological dimension, they again

agree with their primary colleagues favouring
Openness for mathematics compared with
Mystery, and reversing these for science.

Indeed Mystery for science is ranked 2 and 4 by

the secondary teachers and ranked 2 and 3 by
the primary teachers, showing how significant
they consider that aspect to be.
 Some conclusions and
implications.

Rationalism, Empiricism and Control are strongly

favoured in practice, but the other three values figure
more prominently in the teachers’ preferences.
However, we must remember that the data are from
questionnaires and consist of teachers’ reported views of
their preferences and their practices. We do not know
the extent to which their rankings of these practice
statements reflect their actual practices.
But the data for science at the secondary level, where
teachers emphasises other values than mathematics,
indicates the usefulness of comparing subjects and their
values emphases.
 Implications
Finally one can see that, if the data reported here are
valid, the differences show that teachers’ values in the
classroom are shaped to some extent by the values
embedded in each subject, as perceived by them.
This implies that changing teachers’ perceptions and
understandings of the subject being taught may well
change the values they can emphasise in class.
Further if teachers wish to emphasise values other than
those they currently emphasise, it is possible to learn
strategies from their teaching of other subjects.