What is didactics of mathematics?

What is didactics of mathematics? It is an interdisciplinary field of research, which has developed internationally mainly since 1960 and has slowly started to gain space also in the Nordic countries. Before 2000 there were only a handful of Nordic professors in this area but after the millennium it has been an expanding field. There are national graduate schools in Finland and Denmark, Sweden had one between 2000 and 2006 and the number of doctoral students has increased. Since 2004 NordForsk is funding a Nordic Graduate School in Mathematics Education, which encompasses almost 40 research environments, over 120 supervisors and about 85 doctoral students in mathematics education (didactics of mathematics) (see www.nogsme.no). One could claim that the cooperation which is an outcome of the Nordic Graduate School in Mathematics Education has resulted in the wish to create the proposed Nordic master program.

Internationally the field is still searching for its identity (Bishop et al, 1996, 2003; Niss, 1999) and there are many different names on the research area, especially the subject has different names in different cultures. Here we have called the program a program in didactics of mathematics in order not to mix up with mathematics education (matematikutbildning) in general. The Nordic name is ‘matematikdidaktik’ and in Germany it is ‘Didaktik der Mathematik’ and the name ‘mathematics education’ comes from UK.

The research deals with all kinds of questions and conditions concerning teaching and learning of mathematics on all educational levels (Niss, 1999). Such research seems to be much needed as mathematics is the subject in school that most pupils have to struggle with and which creates most need for special support to pupils.

Bishop, A., Clements, K., Keitel, C., Kilpatrick, J. & Laborde, C. (1996). International handbook of mathematics education. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Bishop, A. J, et.al. (2003). Second international handbook of mathematics education. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Niss, M. (1999) Aspects of the nature and state of research in mathematics education, Educational Studies in Mathematics, 40, 1-24.