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In many countries, including those in the Nordic region, there has been a growing trend towards measuring students’ knowledge and understanding, a trend that is evident even in early education. This article presents a discourse analysis of mathematics assessment materials intended for six-year-olds in two neighbouring countries, Sweden and Norway. Thus, the article presents an example of early assessment in two neighboring countries with similar culture and education system. The aim is to investigate the similarities and differences between the various meanings ascribed to their assessment materials, and to discuss how these assessment materials may both influence and be influenced by early mathematics education in these two countries. The results show a diversity of discourses – both between and within the assessment materials – indicating different views on students’ learning of mathematics, on when to assess, on what knowledge to assess, and on how and why to assess. Thus, even though Sweden and Norway have similar cultures and education systems, there is no consensus when it comes to when, what and how to assess the mathematical knowledge of six-year-olds. © 2022 Journal of Childhood, Education & Society.

This paper is about the meanings Swedish preschool class teachers ascribe to early mathematics education when talking about assessment. The assessment material is new national, mandatory assessment material for six-year-old students. Based on a discourse analysis of four focus groups, five discourses were construed: preschool class mathematics is unique; the role of preschool class mathematics is changing; to assess is to categorize; assessment contributes to equity; and individualization implies grouping by level. The results illustrate how teachers hope that the status of and equity in preschool class mathematics education will increase by means of the assessment. However, the teachers’ talk about categorizing and grouping students may have implications for equity. 

This article presents a discourse analysis of early mathematics teachers’ talk about mandatory national assessment material with a particular focus on communication about equity. With this assessment material, teachers do not decide what and how to assess; however, they are the ones who carry out the work before, during, and after assessment. Thus, teachers’ views of equity in assessment may influence how assessment is prepared, conducted, and followed up in teaching. In this study, discourse analysis is used as both a theory and an analytical tool. The study included four focus groups with 12 teachers from eight schools. In their communication, teachers ascribe different meanings to equity. In the results, four discourses with diverse meanings ascribed to equity are construed by the researcher: doing the same discourse, different needs discourse, unclear conditions discourse, and different resources discourse. The meaning of equity, as well as its goal and intention, differs in these discourses, which may have implications for educational practice in terms of tensions between different goals and intentions and thus implications for the degree to which assessment may contribute to equity in early mathematics education.

Developing mathematics education contributing to equity in preschool class

This article presents an educational design research study aiming to develop preschool class mathematics in line with equity. In the study, equity is defined as all students have access to mathematical content and opportunity to develop prosperous positions in and towards the subject. The design of the education was based on the mandatory assessment at the start of preschool class, one preschool class teacher and two researchers together planned, carried out, and evaluated the mathematics education. At the start of the study, three areas of development were identified: instruction, student solutions, and students’ verbal contributions. To address these areas of development, three design principles were introduced: low threshold, open-ended mathematical tasks, and prompts for reasoning. This article presents the way these design principles developed these areas of development in line with the goals of the study, that is, mathematics education that meets the diverse needs of students.

I den här artikeln presenteras en designstudie med målet att utforma en likvärdig matematikundervisning i förskoleklass i betydelsen att alla elever får tillgång till det matematiska innehållet och möjlighet att utveckla ett framgångsrikt förhållningssätt i och till matematikämnet. Designstudien är genomförd i en svensk kontext och tar utgångspunkt i den obligatoriska kartläggningen vid skolstart. Studien genomfördes av en förskoleklasslärare och två forskare som tillsammans planerade, genomförde och utvärderade matematikundervisning. Vid studiens start identifierades tre utvecklingsområden: instruktion, elevlösningar och talutrymme. För att möta dessa utvecklingsområden introducerades tre designprinciper: låg tröskel, öppna matematikuppgifter och resonemangsfrämjande repliker. I artikeln presenteras hur dessa designprinciper påverkade utvecklingsområdena i linje med designstudiens mål. Sammantaget visar resultaten utveckling av en matematikundervisning som möter elevers olikheter.