Abstract
Pre-service primary school teachers come to their initial teacher education programs with
beliefs, attitudes, values and feelings about mathematics and mathematics education. These
have been formed through their experiences of mathematics prior to tertiary study and they
can powerfully impact on their development as a teacher of mathematics. Then, during their
teacher education they have another set of experiences of mathematics, which further impact
on their views and emotions about the discipline. This study focuses on two pre-service
primary teachers in the first year of their initial teacher education and through a series of
interviews and tasks it explores their affective views towards mathematics. It seems from
the study that tertiary mathematics education courses need to explicitly and continually
revisit the pre-service teachers' affective positions if positive development is to occur.