Open this publication in new window or tab >>2025 (English)In: International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, ISSN 0020-739X, E-ISSN 1464-5211, Vol. 56, no 7, p. 1309-1339Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In this paper, drawing on semi-structured interviews with generalist teachers of year-one children in England and Sweden, we examine comparatively the influence of the intended curriculum (teachers in both countries work within mandated national curricula) and the received curriculum (the collectively assumed efficacious practices and goals handed down from one generation of teachers to the next) on teachers’ expressed number-related learning goals. Analyses, framed by a literature-derived and curriculum-independent set of eight forms of number-related competence each implicated in later mathematical learning, identified both similarities and differences in the two groups’ expressed goals. Key similarities concerned expectations that all children should become additively competent, supported by supplementary goals concerning systematic counting, number bonds, the number line and an appropriate mathematical terminology. Key differences concerned English teachers’ strongly-expressed emphasis on place value and a desire for children to learn to multiply. Overall, the strongly-framed English curriculum appears to influence teachers’ goals more than the weakly-framed Swedish, while Swedish teachers seem to draw on a received curriculum more closely aligned with the literature-derived developmental goals than the English. Finally, when set against the literature-derived and curriculum-independent developmental goals, the English curriculum, unlike the Swedish, expects year-one children to learn much age-inappropriate material.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2025
Keywords
Year-one children, number-related learning, teacher goals, England, Sweden, intended curriculum, received curriculum, semi-structured interview
National Category
Educational Sciences
Research subject
Mathematics education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-67259 (URN)10.1080/0020739x.2024.2337937 (DOI)001223791200001 ()2-s2.0-85193258905 (Scopus ID)
Projects
FoNS
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2015-01066
2024-05-162024-05-162025-08-12Bibliographically approved