Teacher Enactment of Curriculum in the School As a Gaze in Mathematics Textbook Research

Much mathematics textbook research has focused on teachers' use of textbooks closely connected to the classroom because of its close location to student learning. The focus on the classroom has left the school underexposed as a site of textbook use. The need to broaden the focus from the classroom to the school emerged when we interviewed elementary school teachers about their textbook use for teaching mathematics. Interviewed teachers brought up many influential factors from the school context. Along that line, the aim of this study is to explore the situated nature of textbook use in the school. We do so based on 16 interviews with 8 teachers from the U.S., Flanders, Finland, and Sweden. Drawing from a policy enactment perspective, our findings give insight into situated differences in textbook practice in schools, suggesting the relevance of foregrounding the school as a site of curriculum enactment.