Mathematics education research as a discipline is situated at the confluence of an array of diffuse¿ seemingly incommensurable¿ and radically divergent discourses. Research claims that have grown out of mathematics education are wide-ranging and antagonistic rather than circumscribed by hidebound disciplinary frames. While there has never been a unified¿ totalising discipline of knowledge labelled ¿mathematics education research¿¿ and while it has always been a contested terrain¿ it is fair to say that the master paradigm out of which this field has been generated has been that of cognitive psychology. Mainstream mathematics education knowledges refracting the master discourse of psychology ¿whereby cognition serves as the central privileged and defining concept¿ clearly delimits its possibilities for serving as a social tool of democratic transformation. The central point of departure of this new collection is that mathematics education research is insufficiently univocal to support the type of uncompromising interpretation that cognitive psychologists would bring to it. The hallmark contribution of this pathbreaking volume edited by Paola Valero and Robyn Zevenbergen is the paradigmatic shift the authors have effected in the field of mathematics education research¿ taking up a position at the faultline of socio-cultural analysis and critical pedagogy.

Organized in dialogic units which examine issues such as the critique of existing research results based on the adoption of socio-political approaches; the implications of alternative theoretical tools in researching mathematics education; the tensions emerging while doing research in highly conflictive environments; the researchers' positioning with respect to research participants; and the adoption of socio-political methodological frameworks.

Setting the Scene of this Book.- Socio-political Perspectives on Mathematics Education.- First Dialogic Unit: Challenging Traditional Research Areas from Socio-political Perspectives.- The Socio-political Context of the Mathematics Classroom.- Assessment, Learning and Identity.- Second Dialogic Unit: Finding Alternative Theoretical Tools.- Postmodernity and Social Research in Mathematics Education.- Problematising Culture and Discourse for Mathematics Education Research.- Third Dialogic Unit: Researching in Conflictive situations.- Dichotomies, Complementarities and Tensions.- Lessons from Research with a Social Movement.- Fourth Dialogic Unit: Addressing the Researcher's Positioning.- Researching the School Mathematics Culture of 'Others'.- The Fly on the Edge of the Porridge Bowl.- Fifth Dialogic Unit: Adopting Critical Approaches in Research Methodology.- Understanding for Changing and Changing for Understanding.- Research Methodology and Critical Mathematics Education.- Methodological Challenges for Mathematics Education Research from a Critical Perspective.- Epilogoue: Talking Back to Mathematics Education Research.- School Subjects, the Politics of Knowledge, and the Projects of Intellectuals in Change.