Educational Studies in Mathematics was founded in 1968 by Hans Freudenthal. I first became acquainted with the journal at Cambridge, England, in the early 1980s, when Alan Bishop was the editor and Christine Keitel was the book review editor. Alan had a little room dedicated to his work on the journal, which was published four times a year by D. Reidel Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Kluwer Academic Publishers in those days. The editorial board consisted of 20 members, well-known scholars whose names would be readily recognized today, mostly from European countries, but also from Mexico, Barbados, the USA, Canada, Japan, and Australia. With Volume 21 in February of 1990, the journal had expanded to require an editor-in-chief, Willibald Dörfler of Austria, and two editors, Gila Hanna of Canada and Leen Streefland of The Netherlands. The journal was published bimonthly. Alan Bishop continued as an advisory editor, in which capacity he still serves today. Ken Ruthven of England became an editor in September, 1994, and editor-in-chief with Volume 30 in January, 1996. Celia Hoyles became the book review editor with that same volume. The editorial board had grown to 32 members, and the journal was published eight times per year. Tommy Dreyfus joined Leen Streefland and Gila Hanna as an editor in January of 1997 (Volume 32).

Heinz Steinbring became an editor, joining Tommy Dreyfus and Gila Hanna, with Volume 36 in June, 1998, and I joined the editorial board, having reviewed papers for the journal for several years before that. I became an editor with Tommy and Heinz (Volume 41) in January, 2000. Ken Ruthven stepped down, and Anna Sierpinska became editor-in-chief (Volume 46) in January, 2001. The journal celebrated its 50th volume during Anna’s tenure as editor-in-chief, and Paolo Boero of Italy joined the editors (Volume 53) in January, 2003. Tommy Dreyfus became editor-in-chief, Bill Barton took his place as an editor, and Ken Clements became the book review editor, with Volume 61 in January, 2006. With the present volume, I am honored to join the editors-in-chief who have devoted considerable time and energy to making the journal what it is today. I particularly want to thank Tommy Dreyfus for his attention to detail and his promotion of excellence during his tenure. He made a point of trying to distribute manuscripts equitable to the five editors, Bill Barton (replaced by Candia Morgan when Bill’s international service required him to step down), Paolo Boero, Heinz Steinbring, himself and myself, and of monitoring the manuscript load of members of the editorial board, whose dedicated service still is tremendously appreciated. Thank you, Tommy, for making my transition a relatively easy one. I appreciate your meticulous work, and I shall strive to continue your high vision for the journal. I join Tommy in welcoming Luis Radford as an editor, and Gail FitzSimons as book review editor, and I thank the editors and the members of the editorial board for their ongoing excellent work.

From the beginning, all the editors of Educational Studies in Mathematics have furthered the twin purposes of fostering articles of the highest quality and relevance, and of making the journal increasingly more international. There are still regions of the world that are underrepresented in the journal, but the twin aims still stand, and we encourage high quality papers from all countries. We are appreciative of the difficult task that authors who do not have English as their first language undertake, in writing for this journal in English. We encourage authors in that position to find native speakers of English who can proofread their manuscripts and help with grammar, if necessary, before the papers are submitted via the Editorial Manager. However, we help where we can, when papers contain quality substance, although it is not possible to rewrite a paper completely for an author. Springer now offers two levels of copy-editing: level one is light, addressing punctuation and some grammatical issues; level three entails more intensive style and editorial changes. Unfortunately, such copy-editing is not always completely helpful, because although their work is appreciated, the copy-editors are not in all cases familiar with the terminology, and especially the mathematical elements, in our field. Thus authors should not rely on this service. All authors should consult recent issues of the journal to familiarize themselves with the style of papers published, especially with regard to block quotations and citation of references. We are now adhering to the style of the Fifth Edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual.

During Tommy’s tenure as editor-in-chief, a new category of decision was added to those available for recommendation by reviewers of manuscripts: category (d), “not acceptable for publication but a different article based on the same research can be resubmitted”, was needed as part of our ongoing mentoring function, to encourage authors to resubmit their strengthened papers. The categories of decision are now as follows: The article is

  1. (a)

    acceptable for publication in its present form;

  2. (b)

    acceptable for publication with minor revisions;

  3. (c)

    worthy of reconsideration after major revision;

  4. (d)

    not acceptable for publication but a different article based on the same research can be resubmitted; and

  5. (e)

    not acceptable for publication.

Most manuscripts are initially placed in categories (c) or (d) when the review process is complete. Papers should optimally be of length 8,000 words, including references, tables, figures, and notes. Exceptionally strong papers of about 10,000 words have been accepted occasionally, but authors of papers of excessive length are often asked to shorten their manuscripts before review.

Also during Tommy’s editorship, several theoretical or philosophical papers, or papers that review an issue in the field, have been published. An innovation was to request scholars who were knowledgeable in the field of certain articles that might be considered controversial to write shorter response papers, which were published in the same issue as the original articles. I believe this practice is healthy because it encourages ongoing dialogue and strengthens quality. In his outgoing editorial (Volume 69, issue 3), Tommy wrote of the ongoing relationship of the journal with the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME). We shall continue to encourage authors of papers identified as suitable in the PME reviewing process to develop their conference papers into full manuscripts and submit these in the Editorial Manager for possible publication. I anticipate that the option of including video with papers as “Educational Supplemental Material” (see the forthcoming PME Special Issue guest edited by Laurie Edwards, Luis Radford, and Ferdinando Arzarello) will be used increasingly as the technology develops. All papers become available online in advance of their publication in hard copy.

I look forward to working with you all! Your suggestions for the ongoing quality of Educational Studies in Mathematics will always be welcomed.