ABSTRACT
In the field of education, different problems have arisen in different countries according to specific historical factors, social needs, and political choices. Such “local” conditions have led to the development of different approaches and styles to deal with these problems in the context of the cultural and teaching traditions of each country. Over time, research in mathematics education has turned the field into a discipline and generated different ideas about what it is or should be (Bieler, Scholz, Strässer, & Winkelmann, 1994; Malara, 1997; Sierpinska & Kilpatrick, 1998), because in each country, it possesses different features, as a reflection of the sociopolitical and cultural environment in which it has developed (Barra, Ferrari, Furinghetti, Malara, & Speranza, 1992; Blum et al., 1992; Douady & Mercier, 1992; Gelfman, Kholodnaya, & Cherkassov, 1997; Iwasaki, 1997; Mura, 1998; Rico & Sierra, 1994; Sowder, 1997). In particular, the following conceptions of mathematics education have arisen:
• Mathematics education as a theoretical and autonomous science, based on a conceptual system and on original methods of inquiry that are not borrowed from close disciplines and that are aimed at studying the phenomenon of mathematics teaching in its complexity and seen in its context (concepts mostly developed in France after Brousseau, 1986)
• Mathematics education as a scientific discipline including theory, development, and practice interacting with the social school system (teacher training, development of curriculum, mathematics classroom, textbooks and teaching aids, assessment) and with related fields (not only with mathematics and its history and epistemology but also with psychology, science education, sociology, etc.) and with a linking function between mathematics and society (Steiner, 1985).
