School District Educational Infrastructure and Change at Scale: Teacher Peer Interactions and Their Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction

While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers’ instructional practice, teachers’ instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers’ instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers’ instructional ties and their beliefs about mathematics instruction in one school district working to transform its approach to elementary mathematics education. Quantitative results show that while teachers’ beliefs did not predict with whom they interacted about mathematics instruction, teachers’ interactions with peers about mathematics instruction were associated with changes in their beliefs over time. Qualitative analysis confirms and extends these findings, revealing how system-level changes in the district’s educational infrastructure facilitated change in teachers’ beliefs about mathematics instruction at scale.