Abstract
This paper is based on ethnographic research approached with a view of mathematics teacher education as embedded within the teacher education program on the whole. I describe preservice elementary teachers’ contextualizations of “mathematics” in the program as well as their place-based characterizations of the value and (ir-)relevance of coursework and fieldwork to teaching. Drawing on these results, I speculate that popular NCTM Standards-based reform visions, and related standards-based approaches in other disciplines, may produce divisions between “philosophy” and “practice” that sometimes function in an unacceptable way to sort and rank schools. I introduce and suggest the need for a “mathematics education in the public interest” that critically analyzes pressing social, political, and economic issues. Finally, I raise challenges to popular approaches and assumptions of mathematics teacher education research and suggest that a networks-based research approach may be one possible avenue for critically examining mainstream approaches toward, and implications of, mathematics teacher education.
