Discussion Document

Abstract

As mathematics education has become better established as a domain of scientific research (if not as a scientific discipline), exactly what this research is and what its results are have become less clear. The history of the past three International Congresses on Mathematical Education demonstrates the need for greater clarity. At the Budapest congress in 1988, in particular, there was a general feeling that mathematics educators from different parts of the world, countries, or even areas of the same country often talk past one another. There seems to be a lack of consensus on what it means to be a mathematics educator. Mathematics education no longer means the same as didactique des mathématiques (if it ever did). French didacticiens refuse to translate their didactique des mathématiques into ‘mathematics education’: a special English edition of the journal Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques bears the title ‘Research in Didactique of Mathematics.’ Die Methodik (or the Polish metodyka, the Slovak metodyka,and the like) have become obsolete. Does research mean the same as recherche or investigación? How do these words translate into other languages? Standards of scientific quality and the criteria for accepting a paper vary considerably among the more that 250 journals on mathematics education published throughout the world.

The following people have contributed to the present document: N. Balacheff, A. G. Howson, A. Sfard, H. Steinbring, J. Kilpatrick, and A. Sierpinska.