Towards constructive ambiguity: changing views during secondary mathematics teacher education?

Previous research on whether pre-service teachers change their views of mathematics and its teaching during their education has mixed results. We pursued a descriptive understanding of the effect of teacher education on the views of teacher education graduates, through using data from ten interviews with Swedish secondary mathematics pre-service teachers. The soon-to-be graduates’ views of mathematics had not changed substantially, and they rarely communicated clear views. The static and dynamic groupings of views coexisted, although dynamic views dominated. We further found indications of a communication view of mathematics. Respondents generally displayed a multifaceted view of mathematics teaching, to which teacher education had contributed. Their views corresponded more frequently with images of the desired teacher as knowledge-transforming and interested. We argue that a multifaceted view of teaching is a welcome outcome for teacher education.