Contemporary concerns in mathematics education recognize that in the increasingly technological and globalized world, with concomitant change in population demographics (e.g. immigration, urbanization) and a change in the status of languages (e.g. English as a dominant language of science and technology) multilingualism in classrooms is a norm rather than an exception. Shifts in perspective also view language not simply as an instrument for cognition with all learners equipped with this instrument in service of learning, although clearly in the classroom that remains of importance. Rather, it is now also being acknowledged that language use is inherently political, so that the language that gets official recognition in the classroom is invariably the language of the powerful elite, or the dominant societal language, or in the case of post-colonial contexts the language of the colonisers. From this socio-political role of language in learning quite different issues arise for teaching, learning and curriculum for linguistically marginalized learners than that of cognition (e.g. immigrants, second language learners, other). Policies on language in education are being considered and re-considered with specific reference to mathematics teaching and learning. Given the policy environment, globally the proposed publication is timely. This edited collection draws on recent, emerging insights and understandings about the approaches to improving policy and practice in mathematics education and mathematics teacher education in multilingual settings. It presents, and discusses critically, examples of work from a range of contexts and uses these examples to draw out key issues for research in education in language diverse settings including teaching, learning, curriculum and fit these with appropriate policy and equity approaches. With contributions from all over the world, especially novice researchers in low income countries, this book is a valuable resource for courses in Mathematics Education and related social sciences both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as for students of international development.

The international New Math developments between about 1950 through 1980, are regarded by many mathematics educators and education historians as the most historically important development in curricula of the twentieth century. It attracted the attention of local and international politicians, of teachers, and of parents, and influenced the teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels—kindergarten to college graduate—in many nations. After garnering much initial support it began to attract criticism. But, as Bill Jacob and the late Jerry Becker show in Chapter 17, some of the effects became entrenched. This volume, edited by Professor Dirk De Bock, of Belgium, provides an outstanding overview of the New Math/modern mathematics movement. Chapter authors provide exceptionally high-quality analyses of the rise of the movement, and of subsequent developments, within a range of nations. The first few chapters show how the initial leadership came from mathematicians in European nations and in the United States of America. The background leaders in Europe were Caleb Gattegno and members of a mysterious group of mainly French pure mathematicians, who since the 1930s had published under the name of (a fictitious) “Nicolas Bourbaki.” In the United States, there emerged, during the 1950s various attempts to improve U.S. mathematics curricula and teaching, especially in secondary schools and colleges. This side of the story climaxed in 1957 when the Soviet Union succeeded in launching “Sputnik,” the first satellite. Undoubtedly, this is a landmark publication in education. The foreword was written by Professor Bob Moon, one of a few other scholars to have written on the New Math from an international perspective. The final “epilogue” chapter, by Professor Geert Vanpaemel, a historian, draws together the overall thrust of the volume, and makes links with the general history of curriculum development, especially in science education, including recent globalization trends.