Dominant Values and Value Shifts: The Valuing Process Seen from Curriculum Levels

This case study investigated primary mathematics teachers’ valuing process and values in two schools participating in the Lesson Study. It focused on the dominant values espoused and enacted by teachers during planning, implementing, and reflecting on their classroom lessons. The study analyzed changes in values across the intended curriculum, implemented curriculum, and attained curriculum levels within the context of the Lesson Study. Using a qualitative research approach, data was collected through video and audio recordings of all phases of the Lesson Study. Artifacts, including lesson plans, field notes, teachers’ observation forms, and student worksheets, were collected. The lessons focused on Year 4 primary mathematics lessons at two specified time allocations within one academic year. Thematic analysis was performed on the transcriptions, exploring explicit or inferred values at each curriculum stage. The findings revealed shared and discrepant dominant values in the two schools, with rationalism, objectism, and control consistently present in mathematics. In the mathematics education dimension, relational understanding, instrumental understanding, and guided discovery were dominant. In the general education dimension, verbal communication was consistently valued. Discrepant dominant values included student knowledge construction in one school and fixed student responses through the Initiate-Response-Feedback approach in the other. Value indicators demonstrated shifts in focus at different curriculum stages, based on its occurrences and stability, influenced by factors such as disparities between intended and practiced values. The school culture, in terms of its school governance and purpose of professional development, may explain such disparities. The study highlights the significance of understanding dominant values in Lesson Study and the factors affecting their shifts to enhance mathematics education.