Archival Infrastructures for Supporting Research That Treats Mathematics Education Research as a Situated Activity
Year: 2021
Type: editorial
Abstract: The previous two editorials in this volume (Herbst, Crespo, et al., 2021 in Issue 2 andHerbst, Chazan, et al., 2021 in Issue 3) have discussed two kinds of infrastructure that would be valuable for the field of mathematics education research to develop: physical (or virtual) assets and personnel with technical expertise.As an elaboration of the former, which included shareable data sets, and the latter, which spoke of research practices, this editorial considers elements of an infrastructure that can support research that situates mathematics education research as a practice occurring in specific places and times.We explicitly acknowledge that our research practices as mathematics educators allow us to make contributions to the progress of knowledge not only by using intellectual resources from our field but also by drawing from particular societies and cultures in the world and particular times in history.This situatedness is undeniable, and although it is often a useful resource, it may also be limiting.We suggest that infrastructure for research about mathematics education research should include archival resources to permit future historians of our field to inspect our intellectual history in the context of its situated production.To argue for this suggestion, we begin with observations about how mathematics education researchers and other mathematics educators often conceptualize mathematics as a situated activity that changes over time.We then consider a commentary in this issue that calls on researchers on mathematics education to conceptualize mathematics education as situated historically.Finally, we turn our attention to supports for research that similarly situates mathematics education research.
Language: English
Subfield: Theoretical Computer Science
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3176273284