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.

ContributorsPreface; Peter McLarenIntroduction: Setting The Scene Of This BookSocio-political perspectives on mathematics education; Paola ValeroFirst Dialogic Unit: Challenging Traditional Research Areas From Socio-Political PerspectivesThe socio-political context of the mathematics classroom. Using Bernstein¿s theoretical framework to understand classroom communications; Stephen Lerman and Robyn ZevenbergenAssessment, learning and identity; Dylan Wiliam, Hannah Bartholomew and Diane ReaySecond Dialogic Unit: Findrng Alternative Theoretical ToolsPostmodernity and social research in mathematics education; Paul ErnestProblematising culture and discourse for mathematics education research. Defining the issues; tools for research; Tony Cotton and Tansy HardyThird Dialogic Unit: Researching In Conflictive SituationsDichotomies, complementarities and tensions. Researching mathematics teaching in its social and political context; Núria Gorgorió, Nútria Planas and Alan BishopLessons from research with a social movement. A voice from the South; Gelsa KnijnikFourth Dialogic Unit: Addressing The Researcher¿s PositioningResearching the school mathematics culture of `others¿. Creating a self-other dialogue; Anna ChronakiThe fly on the edge of the porridge bowl. Outsider research in mathematics education; Tamsin MeaneyFifth Dialogic Unit: Adopting Critical Approaches In Research MethodologyUnderstanding for changing and changing for understanding. Praxis between practice and theory through action research in mathematics education; Bill AtwehResearch methodology and critical mathematics education; Ole Skovsmose and Marcelo BorbaMethodological challenges for mathematics education research from a critical perspective; Renuka VithalEpilogue: Talking Back To Mathematics Education ResearchSchool subjects, the politics of knowledge, and the projectsof intellectuals in change; Thomas PopkewitzName IndexSubject Index