Context Variation in U.S. High Schoolers’ Mathematics Orientations

Abstract

Educators increasingly recognize the importance of students’ learning orientations, but relatively little is known about how these mindsets vary across and potentially shape educational settings. We use nationally representative data to document contextual variation in mathematics orientations in U.S. high schools. We find systematic variation in orientations between differentiated course levels within school, suggesting orientations are more a feature of proximate instructional contexts than general school climate. Between-course variation in orientations is comparable to analogous sorting on demographic characteristics and not primarily explained by prior achievement. Measures of individual learning orientations at scale hold promise for understanding collective educational contexts.