This article reports the findings of a comparative study of pedagogy in lower-secondary school mathematics in Denmark and England. Lesson observations and interviews identified the range of goals towards which teachers in each country worked and the actions these prompted. These were clustered using the lens of Bernstein's pedagogic discourse to construct mathematics teacher roles which provided a view of pedagogy. Comparison allowed variations in pedagogy across the two countries to be identified and implications drawn. Of particular interest were the differences in experience of lower-attaining pupils, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of mathematics pedagogy in each country for this group are indicated.