Problem statement, rationale and research questions

South African primary maths education faces acute problems and attempts are being harnessed to provide for professional development models that result in quality and effective teaching and learning of primary maths. The South African Numeracy Chair initiative provides for longitudinal research and development work with primary maths teachers in order to search ways forward to the crisis. The NICLE primary maths focused teacher development programme of the South African Numeracy Chair, Rhodes University, forms the empirical field for this study. Although there has been increasing research on maths teacher learning within community of practice-based professional development initiatives (Graven, 2004; Adler, 2000; Matos, 2009; Brodie, 2013; Shulman & Shulman, 2004; Little, 2003; Jaworski, 2005), there is little known about how primary maths teachers learn and how their identity and practices evolve within CoP informed in-service programmes. While there are studies that focus on primary maths teacher learning within teacher learning communities (for example Farmer et al, 2003; Graven, 2003; Heaton & Mickelson, 2002; Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008; Hodgen & Askew, 2007; Little et al, 2003), these do not foreground the interrelationship between identity changes and the broader working context as I intend to do in this study. This study therefore explores, particularly primary maths teacher learning across foundation and intermediate phases, in a mathematics CoP in-service programme using the sociocultural-participationists (Lave, 1996; Wenger, 1998; Sfard & Prusak, 2005; Wenger et al, 2002) theoretical components supplemented by Bernstein’s (2000) pedagogic identity model.

1.5.2 Purpose statement

The purpose of this study is to explore and explain the nature of teacher learning with a particular focus on how primary maths teacher professional identities and practices evolve within a Community of Practice professional development initiative and the broader setting and the implications of such educators’ development models towards primary maths teacher learning and effective maths teaching.

1.5.3 Rationale

1. The research seeks to investigate primary maths teacher learning mechanisms within communities of practice context.

2. The study can be viewed as a case of primary maths practice and inquiry informed professional teacher development with a focus on primary maths teacher identity and can contribute to the growing body of literature that highlights learning as changing identity.

3. The study can contribute to policy and practice in the field of in-service primary maths teacher professional development.

1.5.4 Research Questions

The key research questions addressed in this study are: Overarching Question

What is the nature of primary maths teacher learning within an in-service community of practice-inquiry context?

Research Questions

1. How do primary maths teachers’ professional identities evolve in relation to participation in an in-service community of practice-inquiry (as well as in other overlapping communities of practice)? What are the processes through which primary maths teacher identities evolve? 2. What activities, relations and forms of participation within the Community of Practice enable or constrain evolving primary maths teacher identities and practices? How do these enable or constrain?

3. How do these teacher evolving identities and practices relate or align to the broader official pedagogic identities promoted nationally and to other contextual factors external to the CoP? From my initial set of questions at the start of the research I have added the contextual question that emerged during the study as this helps investigate and analyse the South African official primary mathematics pedagogic identities promoted by the post-apartheid curriculum reforms and the recent changes.

Contextual Question

What types of primary mathematics pedagogic identities are promoted within the official national curriculum context and how do these identities relate to classification and framing principles?

Question three, was thus rephrased in relation to the above contextual question and is theoretically illuminated by Bernstein (1999) pedagogic identity model’s generated four pedagogic identity positions. All four research questions are illuminated by the situative- participationists framework that is the social learning theory and the CoPs concept (Wenger, 1998; Lave, 1996; Lave, 1993a & 1993b; Sfard & Prusak, 2005; Wenger et al, 2002) paying particular attention to the notion of identity.

In this study I propose new terms or phrases and thus a language to describe the processes of the primary maths teachers’ identity formation and learning through participation in a numeracy in-service community of practice. The working definitions of these neologies are provided below. The Collins online dictionary defines neologies as newly coined word or phrase or a familiar word used in a new sense.

1.6: Definition of terms introduced in the study

The following working definitions of terms emerged from and are used in the study.

Activation: This is a process used to describe how primary teachers with a history of weak (negatively valued) mathematical identities describe their participation experiences in the in- service community of practice resulting in increasingly positive maths identities.

Insiding: A process describing teacher trajectories that limit their mathematical participation in the in-service community of practice and in maths classes. The term borrows from and extends Wenger (1998) insider trajectories, under which full participating members continuously change their practices and renegotiate their identities in relation to new demands, new inventions and new generations

Outcropping: A process describing teacher trajectories that do not confine or limit their participation to the in-service CoP and maths classes but also extend their maths identities into a wide range of mathematical and mathematics education practices. The term

‘outcropping’ relates to what Wenger (1998) identifies as ‘Boundary trajectories’ which are

amongst the various types of trajectories found in communities of practice. Boundary

trajectories find value in “spanning boundaries and linking communities of practice”

(Wenger, 1998, p. 154).

Primary Maths Teacher Identity: A way of talking about how primary teachers know and name themselves and how they are recognised by others with respect to the subject of mathematics and its corresponding activities. This definition is informed by the theoretical

framework (Wenger, 1998; Bernstein & Solomon, 1999) supplemented with insights from maths identity literature (Bishop, 2012; Grootenboer et al, 2006).

Reinvigoration: Is the umbrella term used to represent several synonyms used by the teachers with positively valued maths histories to explain their participation and learning experiences within NICLE.

Remediation: Is the umbrella term used to represent several synonyms used when participants past negatively valued (mathematical) identities evolve through participation in a (in-service) community of practice towards more positive identities. The concept of remediation is akin to the terms ‘reconstruction’ (Lave, 1993b, p. 73) and ‘reconstitution’ (Cain, 1991, p. 218) used by both Lave and Cain. Reconstitution or reconstruction occurs as participants ‘exorcise’ negative identities and gradually interpret and construct a community identity (Cain, 1991, Lave, 1993b).

Stelos: These are learning stories or stories about learning changes in one’s identity through participation in a community of practice. The term stelos borrows from Sfard and Prusak’s (2005) proposal that identities be equated with stories and Lave’s (1996) notion of telos. The term stelos is born out of our cloning of the words ‘story’ and ‘telos’, or simply put: story +

telos = stelos.

Stunted: Is the term used to express ways in which life, school or teaching experiences results in identity trajectories that shy away from maths. The word stunt also draws from the sociocultural framework with the antonym of this term within the situative framework being ‘sustained’, with Lave (1993b) indicating that identities and knowledge are formed and sustained in communities of practice.