Since early 2000, the inclusiveness of mathematics teaching in New Zealand has become a much-debated topic. Both international (Boaler, 1997, 2008; Larkin & Jorgensen, 2016; Marks, 2013; Tereshchenko et al., 2019) and national studies (Anthony & Walshaw, 2009; Hunter et al., 2019; Hunter, 2010) have examined the teaching and learning of mathematics and found that some teaching practices can promote or prevent student access to, and engagement in learning, mathematics. This study explores how policy, assessment, and differentiated teaching practice can influence mathematics learning in New Zealand primary schools.

This study was a qualitative multiple-case study involving three New Zealand primary school teachers, their students, and school curriculum leaders. By drawing on symbolic interactionism, this study considered how teacher interactions with factors such as policy, school curricula, and assessment might influence how teachers determine what mathematical content they will teach and how they facilitate student access to and engagement with learning mathematics.

The findings of this study provide insights into how mathematics is represented within New Zealand primary schools and how this representation can influence how teachers teach mathematics. Analysis of three educational policies, the New Zealand Curriculum, the Numeracy Development Project, and the Mathematics Standards, suggest that mathematics is structured horizontally (by content) and vertically (by level, stage, or year group). The vertical organisation of mathematical content within policy and participating school curricula suggests a model in which students learn mathematics by building on previously taught mathematical ideas that they must know before moving on to more complex mathematical concepts. Additionally, analysis of participating school curricula and assessment expectations combined with educational policy suggests an over-representation of the number content area compared with the other content areas such as algebra, statistics, geometry, and measurement. Finally, teacher participants indicated that they used assessment data to organise students into vertical groups, referred to as ability groups. These vertical groups influenced teacher assumptions about what students could do independently in mathematics and controlled what mathematical content students were permitted access to.

Given these findings, this thesis suggests that the promotion of the number content area and the vertical organisation of learning mathematics within policy and school curricula could influence how teachers conceptualise student learning needs in mathematics and therefore affect how they facilitate student access to and engagement with mathematics.