Title: Shifting Perspectives in Mathematics: Examining Preservice Teachers’ Evolving Conceptions of Mathematics, Identity, and Social Inequality Through Course Design
Abstract:
Mathematics is often viewed, taught, and learned as an abstract, stand-alone subject, with an emphasis on procedures that are frequently disconnected from learners’ lived experiences. Within this framing, limited attention is given to students’ beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and identities. As a result, opportunities to engage mathematics as a social, sociopolitical, and empowering tool remain rare. These patterns have important implications for teacher education: when mathematics is positioned primarily as abstract and procedural, preservice teachers (PTs) may enter the profession without the conceptual understanding, pedagogical flexibility, and critical awareness needed to effectively support diverse learners. Teaching mathematics, however, involves more than delivering content—it also requires fostering confidence, persistence, and meaningful mathematical identities.
This study addresses the question: how can teacher education programs prepare PTs to develop strong mathematical understanding, effective instructional practices, positive mathematical identities, and social awareness? To explore this, the study is organized into three interconnected parts.
First, the Mathematical Conceptualization & Empowerment (MCE) Framework is introduced to examine how PTs conceptualize mathematics—as an abstract system, a contextual tool, a human activity, and an empowering sociopolitical lens. Following participation in a ten-week mathematics content course intentionally designed around these dimensions, PTs demonstrated increased engagement with mathematics as socially situated, identity-connected, and empowering.
Second, the study investigates PTs’ beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and identities in relation to mathematics and real-world, socially relevant mathematical tasks. Findings show clear shifts from anxiety, avoidance, and negative identities toward more positive, confident, and engaged perspectives. PTs also developed stronger social and political awareness, which they attributed to a collaborative, student-centered learning environment emphasizing inquiry, discussion, and shared sense-making.
Third, the study examines the design of the course itself, illustrating how teacher education can intentionally integrate three core aims: developing conceptual understanding, learning to teach mathematics through attention to children’s thinking, and engaging PTs’ beliefs, emotions, and identities within socially and critically oriented contexts. Through real-world tasks connected to issues such as inequality, PTs demonstrated growing critical awareness and a rejection of deficit perspectives about students. While some expressed readiness to challenge inequities, many favored localized or cautious approaches, highlighting the need for stronger support in developing critical agency.
Overall, this study shows how PTs’ perspectives can shift from viewing mathematics as objective and procedural to understanding it as human, contextual, and empowering. Their attitudes and emotions moved from anxiety and frustration toward enjoyment, curiosity, and confidence, while their identities evolved toward more confident, reflective, and equity-oriented positions. These findings suggest that mathematics teacher education should move beyond a sole focus on content and pedagogy by intentionally attending to beliefs, attitudes, emotions, identity, and critical awareness—ultimately supporting the development of mathematically empowered and socially responsible educators.