Sense-making and structure in teachers’ reception of educational reform. A case study on statistics in the mathematics curriculum

Implementing educational innovations is far more complex than the straightforward execution of policy prescriptions. The diversity in implementation variants reflects an inherent tension between stabilizing and change-driven processes in school organizations. This article tries to capture this complexity by focusing on how individual and collective processes of sense-making, as well as the actual structural factors (e.g., subcultures, roles and positions) and processes (e.g., legitimation) in the school, mediate implementation practices. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, this article reports on an exploratory study into the perceptions and implementation of the new statistics curriculum by secondary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium).

► We examine the increased integration of statistics in the mathematics curriculum.
► Mathematics teachers' sense-making affects the implementation process.
► Determinants involve structural factors and processes in the school.
► Ongoing dialog between sense-making theory and micropolitics.