This open access book discusses several didactic traditions in mathematics education in countries across Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the Czech and Slovakian Republics, and the Scandinavian states. It shows that while they all share common features both in the practice of learning and teaching at school and in research and development, they each have special features due to specific historical and cultural developments. The book also presents interesting historical facts about these didactic traditions, the theories and examples developed in these countries.

This open access book, inspired by the ICME 13 Thematic Afternoon on “European Didactic Traditions”, takes readers on a journey with mathematics education researchers, developers and educators in eighteen countries, who reflect on their experiences with Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), the domain-specific instruction theory for mathematics education developed in the Netherlands since the late 1960s. Authors from outside the Netherlands discuss what aspects of RME appeal to them, their criticisms of RME and their past and current RME-based projects. It is clear that a particular approach to mathematics education cannot simply be transplanted to another country. As such, in eighteen chapters the authors describe how they have adapted RME to their individual circumstances and view on mathematics education, and tell their personal stories about how RME has influenced their thinking on mathematics education.

There is great diversity in teacher education systems and approaches to learning and teaching practice across Europe, even though the practical everyday problems of the various national education systems may be very similar. Against this background, in the field of research on didactics, learning and teaching it is important to overcome fragmentation and to find common ground. In this book the editors demonstrate how far we have come over recent years in advancing research in the field which has the ultimate aim of improving learning and teaching. The editors recognise the diverging national and local practices as a starting point in searching for common ground and in creating shared understandings. The book is organised in six parts with 26 chapters in which the authors examine whether there is a paradigmatic shift from teaching to learning, take a closer look at various teacher education models and their empirical basis, discuss the importance of subject didactics, curriculum work and lesson planning, and analyse the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on didactical design. Finally, they relate the empirical findings to theory construction and offer proposals to further advance this vital field by increasing levels of international co-operation.

MasterClass in Mathematics Education provides accessible links between theory and practice and encourages readers to reflect on their own understanding of their teaching context. Each chapter, written by an internationally respected authority, explores the key concepts within the selected area of the field, drawing directly on published research to encourage readers to reflect on the content, ideas and ongoing debates. Using international case studies, each chapter will encourage readers to think about ways that the teaching and learning of mathematics reflect different cultural traditions and expectations and enable them to evaluate effective strategies for their own contexts.

The idea of the ICMI Study 13 is outlined as follows: Education in any social environment is influenced in many ways by the traditions of these environments. This study brings together leading experts to research and report on mathematics education in a global context. Mathematics education faces a split phenomenon of difference and correspondence. A study attempting a comparison between mathematics education in different traditions will be helpful to understanding this phenomenon.

This work reports the findings of the Professional Competence of Teachers, Cognitively Activating Instruction, and Development of Students ́ Mathematical Literacy project (COACTIV). COACTIV applies a broad, innovative conceptualization of teacher competence to examine how mathematics teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, motivational orientations, and self-regulation skills influence their instructional practice and teaching outcomes In this project data was collected on various aspects of teacher competence and classroom instruction from the perspective of both the teachers themselves and their students. Moreover, it gauges the effects of these teacher characteristics on student learning, as indexed by the progress students in each class. Questions addressed in the study which are reported in this volume include: What are the characteristics of successful teaching? What distinguishes teachers who succeed in their profession? How can the quality of instruction be improved?

This ground-breaking book investigates how the learning and teaching of mathematics can be improved through integrating the history of mathematics into all aspects of mathematics education: lessons, homework, texts, lectures, projects, assessment, and curricula. It draws upon evidence from the experience of teachers as well as national curricula, textbooks, teacher education practices, and research perspectives across the world. It includes a 300-item annotated bibliography of recent work in the field in eight languages.