Abstract: Student teachers in Australia and Singapore were asked to solve a one-step ratio problem and to complete open sentences about the nature of mathematics and mathematics pedagogy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences in proportional reasoning of the student teachers in Australia and Singapore through the approaches and strategies they used in solving the ratio problem. From their responses to the open sentences, this paper presents also the differences and similarities between the to country groups in their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and how mathematics is learned and taught. The relationships between beliefs about mathematics and variables in solving the ratio problem are discussed with particular reference to the curriculum and pedagogical contexts in Australia and Singapore.