What are the Pedagogical Intentions of Textbooks? Pedagogical Intent and Practice

School mathematics textbooks are used in varying ways and to varying degrees by teachers and schools. The presentation of exercises and activities suggests a sequence for instruction and often accompanying teacher notes provide more specific details of how to tailor the lesson to given activities. Some textbooks provide details of investigative tasks to promote conceptual understanding of topics of focus. With teachers taking varied approaches to the use of textbooks, there is great potential for mismatch between the pedagogical intent of the textbook materials and the actual classroom practice that is enacted. In this paper, we report on a study into the use of one textbook series in elementary schools. We present interview data from the textbook authors who describe the pedagogical intent of their textbook series. We combine this with classroom observations of teacher practice to compare textbook pedagogical intent and practice