A comparative study of the rhetoric of policymakers and mathematics teachers in the Western Cape, South Africa

This study is an examination of the similarities and differences between the rhetoric of policymakers and the rhetoric of mathematics teachers in the Western Cape in South Africa. The data corpus consists of two kinds of data, namely, transcribed interviews—observational data with three middle school and three high school teachers—and a set of policy documents on Curriculum 2005, the post-apartheid South African government's outcomes-based curriculum policy. Interviews focused on teachers' views about the nature of mathematics and the teaching and learning of mathematics.; An analysis of the interviews indicates that the teachers' rhetoric is heavily influenced by their beliefs and knowledge about the nature of mathematics and the teaching and learning thereof. For example, internal to the school, they encounter the school mathematics tradition with its fragmented mathematics curriculum and modal practice with its familiar routine of checking answers to the previous day's homework and an emphasis on mathematics as an isolated collection of rules, facts, and procedures.; An analysis of the rhetoric in the curriculum policy, Curriculum 2005, shows that it wishes to transcend and merge education and training. It has “learner-centeredness” as a key principle in curriculum development. Learners are defined in broad terms and include out-of-school youth and adults, especially those who have been underdeveloped through apartheid education policies. The curriculum policy focuses on “outcomes,” which is what learners should know at the end of a period of what learners should know at the end of a period of teaching and learning, as opposed to “content.” Rhetoric in the mathematics component of Curriculum 2005 shows a continuity in a desire to merge and transcend education and training. There are also several educational slogans from various mathematics education traditions such as the school mathematics tradition, constructivism, disciplinary approaches to mathematics teaching and learning, ethnomathematics, critical mathematics education, and a variation of the last two. The mathematics component has no curricular examples, such as teaching vignettes to illustrate the rhetoric associated with different mathematics education traditions.; On the one hand the findings of the comparison between teacher rhetoric and policymaker rhetoric reveal the strength of the school mathematics tradition. On the other hand the comparison also shows variations in the teacher rhetoric. For example, contact points in the comparison indicate that there are instances of “similar words and similar understandings,” and “similar words and different understandings.” The results of the study highlight the great challenges that lie ahead in terms of transcending and merging a “rigid division” like education and training in school mathematics reform in the Western Cape and in South Africa. Also, the results allude to challenges in the areas of teacher learning and curriculum development in mathematics content, in order to produce instruction that reflects the mathematics component of Curriculum 2005.