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Making sense of ‘mastery’: Understandings of a policy term among a sample of teachers in England

Simpson, Adrian; Wang, Y.

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Abstract

This paper considers the term ‘mastery’ as used in mathematics education across different times and locations. A case study from England is offered to show how these pedagogical approaches morph as they move from one territory to another, in the context of each territory’s history. The paper first examines English policy documents, research and published curricula for their use of the term. This suggests that ‘mastery’ in England has become associated with mathematics teaching practices used in high-performing territories such as Singapore and Shanghai (China). But the efforts to transport approaches predominately from East Asian sources, against the background of an existing Western set of meanings for the term, has led to considerable inconsistency in interpretations and definitions of the ‘mastery approach’. A subsequent case study of eight teachers involved in developing mastery approaches in England explores how they make sense of ‘mastery’ in the context of these inconsistent messages. We suggest that this generates challenges for teachers tasked with implementing mastery approaches, with the danger that anything can be done in the name of mastery.

Citation

Simpson, A., & Wang, Y. (2023). Making sense of ‘mastery’: Understandings of a policy term among a sample of teachers in England. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 21(2), 581-600. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-021-10178-x

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 5, 2021
Online Publication Date Mar 30, 2022
Publication Date 2023-02
Deposit Date Apr 16, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 1, 2023
Journal International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
Print ISSN 1571-0068
Electronic ISSN 1573-1774
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 21
Issue 2
Pages 581-600
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-021-10178-x

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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