Beginning teachers generally are not aware of the difficulty of dealing with several factors such as students, parents, curriculum, and administrators until they start teaching (Flores & Day, 2006) and they lack the experiences in dealing with these difficulties. They also have certain beliefs about students, teaching, and school contexts that they carry from their pre-college years (Lampert, 1990) and some from teacher education programs. However, the school contexts influence beginning teachers’ beliefs and generally direct them towards the beliefs that teacher education programs do not desire beginning teachers to have (Raymond, 1997; Wilcox, 1992). Beginning teachers are not generally prepared for the reality of the schools and the beliefs that teacher education programs have developed are vulnerable since beginning teachers do not have much classroom experience that would strengthen these beliefs. Therefore, they are likely to depend on more teacher-centered or even pre-college beliefs in handling the complex nature of the school contexts.

The present study investigated how beginning teachers’ mathematics related beliefs have changed after their fourth-year teaching. The impact of the school contexts and the teacher education program on beginning teachers’ mathematics related beliefs were investigated in comparison to their beliefs after first-year teaching. It is hoped that the findings of the study would inform the teacher education programs and the beginning teacher policies.

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