How educational systems and cultures meidate teacher knowledge: teacher 'listening' in English, French and German classrooms.

The chapter aims at developing a better understanding of teacher ‘listening’ in mathematics classrooms, and how it relates to mathematics teacher knowledge for/in teaching. A comparative case approach was used to help to sharpen and deepen the constructs under study. Results show that ‘teacher listening to pupils’ was differently perceived in English, French and German classrooms, in the sense that mathematics teachers needed different kinds of knowledge to be effective, and to listen ‘appropriately’, within their respective environments. Even similar kinds of knowledge (for example subject knowledge) appeared to be differently situated in these different culturally figured worlds. Moreover, it is argued that knowledge in/for teaching can be both applied and developed through ‘listening’