Phenomenological framing in teacher noticing research: how theoretical perspectives constitute their objects

Abstract

Teacher noticing has become one of the most generative yet contested constructs in teacher education research. Cognitive, sociocultural, and ecological-embodied perspectives are often discussed as alternative, and sometimes potentially complementary, accounts of teacher noticing. This paper advances a stronger meta-theoretical account: through their framing operations, these perspectives can constitute distinct research objects rather than merely illuminate different aspects of a common one. Building on an earlier formulation of phenomenological framing, I systematize the concept as the constitutive work through which a theoretical perspective determines where noticing is located, what standards define its adequacy, and how it is organized in time, thereby shaping what counts as evidence and what remains theoretically less visible. I derive three framing moves (object constitution, normativity distribution, and temporality structuring) and use them to compare cognitive, sociocultural, and ecological-embodied perspectives in mathematics teacher noticing research, where this plurality has been most systematically documented. The analysis shows that some apparently empirical disagreements in this literature are constitutive and that evaluating professional development through a framing other than the one informing its design can misrepresent its effects. Phenomenological framing thus offers a practical tool for examining how theoretical perspectives constitute, rather than merely describe, their objects.