This study contributes to the conceptualisation of teachers’ competence through a systematic review (a concept synthesis) of three key transdisciplinary competencies—teachers’ diversity competence, teachers’ research and development competence, and teachers’ digital competence. Based on our analysis, we propose a set of dimensions to consider—within which there were important tensions in the research literature reviewed—when discussing teachers’ professional competence. These dimensions are: the 1) beneficiary, 2) teachers’ role, 3) attitudes, knowledge and skills, 4) sources of competence, 5) relationship to disciplinary content and 6) assessment. We discuss the three areas in light of these dimensions. We suggest that the complexity of being and becoming a teacher is a blind spot in research on teachers’ transdisciplinary competence and that many articles show deficit thinking about teachers.

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An issue of particular concern in mathematics teacher education is the relationship between theory and practice, and the nature of university-school partnerships. We report here on results from a research project answering the call for a more systematic understanding of the practice learning context. The study focuses on the new Norwegian elementary teacher education programme and highlights the difficulties involved in connecting theory and practice and how prospective teachers may be supported in this respect. Focus group interviews involving 51 first-year prospective teachers and 25 teacher-mentors investigated early school placements, specifically prospective teachers' positions in the classroom as teachers of mathematics, and the ways in which the mentoring relationship supported their developing role. Taking a communities of practice perspective, we found that the idea of movement across intersecting and sometimes conflicting communities of practice is helpful in aiding our understanding of the difficulty of connecting theory and practice. Additionally, variations in mentoring styles and perceptions of prospective teachers' mathematics and pedagogic knowledge competencies play a part in some prospective teachers' difficulties in taking up a role as legitimate peripheral participant in the school. We conclude by considering ways in which prospective teachers might be better supported to cope with school placement.

Due to the fixed school start in Norway in August of the calendar year of students' sixth birthday, the age span in one class is up to twelve months. This can impact academic performance both in the early years and later. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between birth month and mathematics performance by paying attention to the content and cognitive domains addressed in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015. In Norway, the TIMSS 2015 included four cohorts, enabling a comparison between grades. We find significant correlations between birth month and mathematics performance overall as well as in all content and cognitive domains for grades 4, 5 and 8. Furthermore, the gap in mathematics results between the youngest and the oldest in a cohort is less in grade 9 than in grade 4. We suggest that these findings have implications for mathematics teachers' practice.

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