A prior socio-cultural inquiry into the professional socialisation experience of immigrant teachers of secondary mathematics in Victoria had focussed on their responsive approaches to perceived value differences (Seah, 2003b). By adopting a different angle of a similar lens of inquiry complementarily, through questioning the nature of the value differences perceived, the immigrant teachers'
... [Show full abstract] socialisation experiences are contextualised in terms of interactions between cultural values. This paper outlines some of these value differences, and highlights values related to the Victorian mathematics educational culture. Following an earlier research study on the professional socialisation experiences of eight immigrant teachers of secondary mathematics in Victoria, I had reported the empowering approaches adopted by these immigrant teachers towards negotiating and mediating perceived differences in their respective mathematics classrooms (Seah, 2003b), and also discussed the significant contextual factors guiding the approaches adopted (Seah, 2003a). Prior to their arrival in Victoria, the eight teachers participating in the qualitative study had grown up, studied, and taught in their respective home countries. For many of them, mathematics (and school mathematics) was perceived as a culture-free discipline. There were often expectations that it would be relatively easy to transfer its teaching across classrooms in different countries. The potential for culture-based conflict was thus evident. As one teacher participant, Li Kang (from Malaysia), put it, Maths is universal. Worded questions should not be culturally biased, e.g. questions involving cricket, football (Aussie rules) may be biased in favour of Australians or students who play in the sport. How in questions like probability, involving playing cards, if assumed that all students are expected to know what a "pack of cards" are (sic). (LQ A comments) While the ability of these immigrant teachers to negotiate cultural differences in mathematics and its pedagogy is certainly cause for celebrating their professionalism, contextual constraints and affordances that were identified (discussed in Seah, 2003a) are reminders that the professional socialisation of these teachers is intricately related to their respective interactions with students, colleagues, institutional structures, and the wider community. Just as Lubienski (2003) had argued that educational research promoting only positive aspects of diversity risks compromising research credibility (in that inherent issues and problems confronting marginalised groups may not be addressed), the intention of this paper is to examine the professional socialisation experiences of the immigrant teachers from another angle within the socio-cultural perspective, one which shifts the focus from personal negotiation with the environment to interactional co-construction of realities. By discussing some of the cultural differences which immigrant teachers were perceiving, this paper represents an inquiry into what these differences were really about, in relation to the socio-cultural environment within which the teachers were functioning. This avoids interpreting immigrant teachers' socialisation from a deficit view, and positions their experiences as being products of social interactions and meaning-making.
