Mathematics Education as a Matter of Labor

Introduction

During the twentieth century, mathematics education was predominantly conceptualized either as the diffusion of mathematical contents or as the facilitation of the students’ development of mathematical cognitive structures. In the first case, the emphasis was generally put on the organization of the mathematics curriculum and the efficient management of the learning environment. In the second case, the emphasis was often put on mental structures and the understanding of students’ mathematical conceptualizations. In the first case, the underpinning theoretical orientation was essentially epistemological. In the second case, the theoretical orientation was psychological. Although the aforementioned conceptualizations of mathematics education have shown their merits, in the past few years, there has been an increasing awareness that to come to grips with the complexity of contemporary societal demands, mathematics education can no longer be fruitfully formulated either as an...