ALAN J. BISHOP Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia RATIONALE Mathematics Education is becoming a well-documented field with many books, journals and international conferences focusing on a variety of aspects relating to theory, research and practice. That documentation also reflects the fact that the field has expanded enormously in the last twenty years. At the 8th International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME) in Seville, Spain, for example, there were 26 specialist Working Groups and 26 special ist Topic Groups, as well as a host of other group activities. In 1950 the 'Commission Internationale pour I 'Etude et l' Amelioration de l'Enseignement des Mathematiques' (CIEAEM) was formed and twenty years ago another active group, the 'International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education' (PME), began at the third ICME at Karlsruhe in 1976. Since then several other specialist groups have been formed, and are also active through regular conferences and publications, as documented in Edward Jacobsen's Chapter 34 in this volume.

This edition is an essential resource for students, researchers, teacher educators and curriculum policy makers in the field of mathematics education.

This Handbook presents an overview and analysis of the international `state-of-the-field' of mathematics education at the end of the 20th century. The more than 150 authors, editors and chapter reviewers involved in its production come from a range of countries and cultures. They have created a book of 36 original chapters in four sections, surveying the variety of practices, and the range of disciplinary interconnections, which characterise the field today, and providing perspectives on the study of mathematics education for the 21st century. It is first and foremost a reference work, and will appeal to anyone seeking up-to-date knowledge about the main developments in mathematics education. These will include teachers, student teachers and student researchers starting out on a serious study of the subject, as well as experienced researchers, teacher educators, educational policy-makers and curriculum developers who need to be aware of the latest areas of knowledge development.

The four sections in this Third International Handbook are concerned with: (a) social, political and cultural dimensions in mathematics education; (b) mathematics education as a field of study; (c) technology in the mathematics curriculum; and (d) international perspectives on mathematics education. These themes are taken up by 84 internationally-recognized scholars, based in 26 different nations. Each of section is structured on the basis of past, present and future aspects. The first chapter in a section provides historical perspectives (“How did we get to where we are now?”); the middle chapters in a section analyze present-day key issues and themes (“Where are we now, and what recent events have been especially significant?”); and the final chapter in a section reflects on policy matters (“Where are we going, and what should we do?”). Readership: Teachers, mathematics educators, ed.policy makers, mathematicians, graduate students, undergraduate students. Large set of authoritative, international authors.​

This is the first comprehensive International Handbook on the History of Mathematics Education, covering a wide spectrum of epochs and civilizations, countries and cultures. Until now, much of the research into the rich and varied history of mathematics education has remained inaccessible to the vast majority of scholars, not least because it has been written in the language, and for readers, of an individual country. And yet a historical overview, however brief, has become an indispensable element of nearly every dissertation and scholarly article. This handbook provides, for the first time, a comprehensive and systematic aid for researchers around the world in finding the information they need about historical developments in mathematics education, not only in their own countries, but globally as well. Although written primarily for mathematics educators, this handbook will also be of interest to researchers of the history of education in general, as well as specialists in cultural and even social history.

This comprehensive volume provides teachers, researchers and education professionals with cutting edge knowledge developed in the last decades by the educational, behavioural and neurosciences, integrating cognitive, developmental and socioeconomic approaches to deal with the problems children face in learning mathematics. The neurocognitive mechanisms and the cognitive processes underlying acquisition of arithmetic abilities and their significance for education have been the subject of intense research in the last few decades, but the most part of this research has been conducted in non-applied settings and there’s still a deep discrepancy between the level of scientific knowledge and its implementation into actual educational settings. Now it’s time to bring the results from the laboratory to the classroom. Apart from bringing the theoretical discussions to educational settings, the volume presents a wide range of methods for early detection of children with risks in mathematics learning and strategies to develop effective interventions based on innovative cognitive test instruments. It also provides insights to translate research knowledge into public policies in order to address socioeconomic issues. And it does so from an international perspective, dedicating a whole section to the cultural diversity of mathematics learning difficulties in different parts of the world. All of this makes the International Handbook of Mathematical Learning Difficulties an essential tool for those involved in the daily struggle to prepare the future generations to succeed in the global knowledge society.

The audience remains much the same as for the 1992 Handbook, namely, mathematics education researchers and other scholars conducting work in mathematics education. This group includes college and university faculty, graduate students, investigators in research and development centers, and staff members at federal, state, and local agencies that conduct and use research within the discipline of mathematics. The intent of the authors of this volume is to provide useful perspectives as well as pertinent information for conducting investigations that are informed by previous work. The Handbook should also be a useful textbook for graduate research seminars. In addition to the audience mentioned above, the present Handbook contains chapters that should be relevant to four other groups: teacher educators, curriculum developers, state and national policy makers, and test developers and others involved with assessment. Taken as a whole, the chapters reflects the mathematics education research community's willingness to accept the challenge of helping the public understand what mathematics education research is all about and what the relevance of their research fi ndings might be for those outside their immediate community.