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Networking Theories to Understand Beliefs and Their Crucial Role in Mathematics Education

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From beliefs to dynamic affect systems in mathematics education

Part of the book series: Advances in Mathematics Education ((AME))

Abstract

Many publications present research on teacher beliefs, whether concretized for pre-service or in- service teachers. Most of them have in common that they highlight the crucial role that beliefs play in the classroom. In this chapter, we explore more deeply what those crucial aspects are, what they consist of, and how they interact with other variables. Different theoretical lenses will be brought together to underline different perspectives and to gain explanatory power going beyond the single approaches. For the case of practising teachers, we will discuss some thoughts on the classical contributions by Shulman (Educ Res 15(2):4–14, 1986) and Schoenfeld (Issues Educ 4(1):1–94, 1998). On the one hand, we extend the knowledge categorization provided by Shulman to the fields of beliefs and goals. On the other hand, we elaborate on Schoenfeld’s theory of Teaching-In-Context. For the case of pre-service teachers, we combine the classification of mathematical beliefs based on the work of Ernest with ideas of conceptual change originally conceived in the context of knowledge (cf. Ernest, J Educ Teach 15:13–33, 1989; Vosniadou and Verschaffel, Learn Instr 14(5):445–451, 2004).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Our ideas are based on Roesken and Rolka (2011).

  2. 2.

    These ideas are based on Liljedahl et al. (2007a, b) and Rolka et al. (2006).

  3. 3.

    Funded by the Robert-Bosch Foundation.

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Correspondence to Katrin Rolka .

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Rolka, K., Roesken-Winter, B. (2015). Networking Theories to Understand Beliefs and Their Crucial Role in Mathematics Education. In: Pepin, B., Roesken-Winter, B. (eds) From beliefs to dynamic affect systems in mathematics education. Advances in Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06808-4_4

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