ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore a new perspective from which to think about the process of mathematics teachers’ development, a perspective that is rooted in a sociocultural view of learning. Rather than focusing on the learning processes of individual teachers undergoing transformation, teacher learning can be conceptualized as a process of “transformation of participation” in the practices of a community (Rogoff, 1994). In this chapter, two illustrations are provided of how teacher learning can be examined in this more socially interactive way. Each illustration is cast within a specific sociocultural framework and uses data from practicing teachers’ attempts to reform their mathematics instruction. Both frameworks—Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of learning through legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice, and Tharp and Gallimore’s (1988) model of learning as movement from assisted performance to unassisted performance through a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)—share a basic perspective on learning as an inherently social and cultural activity that involves transforming the ways in which individuals participate in the practices of a community. By providing an example using each of these frameworks, we hope to demonstrate how this sociocultural perspective on learning guides us to look at aspects of the teacher change process that more traditional psychological perspectives on learning generally do not highlight.
