MATHEMATICS: TRADITIONS AND [NEW] PRACTICES • © AAMT & MERGA 2011 “MY SELF-ESTEEM HAS RISEN DRAMATICALLY”: A CASE-STUDY OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHER ACTION RESEARCH USING BIBLIOTHERAPY TO ADDRESS MATHEMATICS ANXIETY SUE WILSON Australian Catholic University sue.wilson@acu.edu.au SHANNON GURNEY Australian Catholic University We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. Ursula Le Guin Pre-service primary teachers‟ mathematics anxiety affects their future teaching of mathematics. This makes them less likely to engage with mathematics, impacting on the attitudes and performance of their future students. Hence, teacher education is a crucial site for further research. Bibliotherapy, incorporated into a fourth-year pre-service teacher‟s action research during her final practicum, helped identify the impact of previous experiences on her mathematical identity. With each cycle of her action research, supported by the bibliotherapy process, the pre-service teacher was able to develop greater insight, leading to a more positive projection into her future as a teacher of primary mathematics. Introduction Recent mathematics curriculum documents, for example, the Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority [ACARA], 2010), are based on the premise that all students are capable of learning mathematics. This counters the traditional view, in which only a few students were expected to succeed. Mathematics has been perceived as a critical filter (Sells, 1978), associated with elitism and social stratification (Tate, 1995). Beliefs that success in mathematics relates to participants‟ inherent worth still dominate thinking (Gates & Jorgensen, 2009). Failure in mathematics can have a powerful emotional impact that may extend far beyond the mathematics classroom (Boaler, 1997). The impacts of mathematics instruction produce for many an enduring state of mathematics anxiety. This anxiety has been associated with inappropriate teaching practices, and a prevalent belief that success in mathematics is determined by ability rather than effort (Stigler & Hiebert, 1992). This paper, part of a larger project investigating the use of bibliotherapy, is written within a framework of action research, as a tool for addressing primary pre-service teachers‟ mathematics anxiety. This will add to existing frameworks for the study of affect in mathematics education (see, for example, Hannula, Evans, Philippou, & Zan, 2004). 804