Funded by the Norwegian Research Council

Students’ performance and engagement with mathematics is crucial to their future education and training.  Yet international tests and national patterns of attainment suggest that many students in Norway do not reach their full potential in this subject, despite the long-standing commitment to adapted education which should address every child’s needs. At the same time, the curriculum in Norway has changed towards an emphasis on mathematical processes such as problem solving, reasoning and argumentation rather than simple mathematical products.  Schools and teachers thus face the challenge of ensuring that all learners, whatever their background and prior attainment, are fully included in mathematics lessons in ways which enable them to develop a deep understanding of the subject.

The IMaT project addressed the need to make mathematics teaching in Norway more inclusive, exploring how schools organised their teachers and resources for inclusion, and how teachers work in the classroom to engage all learners.  Running from January 2019 to June 2024, the main project tasks involved:

• Surveying schools across Norway to find out more about how they organise education in mathematics, and, by drawing on existing data repositories, explore the impact of different strategies on student outcomes;
• Interviewing municipality leaders to understand their processes of decision-making about how teaching is organised in their municipality with particular reference to adapted education and inclusion;
• Interviewing school leaders and teachers about mathematics teaching and the ways in which they address adapted education and inclusion;
• Looking closely at both primary and secondary classrooms to observe and understand teachers’ practice and the nature of classroom organisation with respect to adapted education;
• Gathering data on student perspectives on  their mathematics classroom experiences;
• Developing and evaluating an intervention based on approaches influenced by Realistic Mathematics Education (developing teacher noticing, building on students’ informal strategies), known for its positive impact on attainment and engagement across the range of ages and abilities.

The project team consisted of sociologists of education, mathematics education specialists, teacher educators, curriculum materials designers, educational researchers and statisticians who worked together to develop our understanding of the organisation of teaching in Norway and to inform teachers’ professional development in ways which are sustainable beyond the life of the project.  The project also included a parallel PhD study of attainment grouping as a means of delivering adapted education, attached to Work Package 3..

The project began in January 2019, and was completed in June 2024.

Project organisation