Conflicting Discourses, Conflicting Values

Abstract

Research designed to elicit middle-school mathematics teachers' perceptions of connections between in-school and out-of-school mathematical reasoning revealed an unexpected clash. The teacher participants gave evidence of valuing both student efficiency and student understanding, but the simultaneous salience of those values was positioned by the teachers as problematic. Rather than viewing efficiency and understanding as complementary aspects of mathematics learning and doing, teachers spoke of the two values as conflicting and in opposition to one another.