Surveying theories and philosophies of mathematics education

Abstract

Any theory of thinking or teaching or learning rests on an underlying philosophy of knowledge. Mathematics education is situated at the nexus of two fields of inquiry, namely mathematics and education. However, numerous other disciplines interact with these two fields which compound the complexity of developing theories that define mathematics education. We first address the issue of clarifying a philosophy of mathematics education before attempting to answer whether theories of mathematics education are constructible? In doing so we draw on the
foundational writings of Lincoln and Guba (1994), in which they clearly posit that any discipline within education, in our case mathematics education, needs to clarify for itself the following questions:

(1) What is reality? Or what is the nature of the world around us?

(2) How do we go about knowing the world around us? [the methodological question, which presents possibilities to various disciplines to develop methodological paradigms] and,

(3) How can we be certain in the “truth” of what we know? [the epistemological question]