What Is Research in Mathematics Education, and What Are Its Results?

scientific research (if not as a scientific discipline), exactly what this research is and what its results are have become less clear. The history of the past three International Congresses on Mathematical Education demonstrates the need for greater clarity. At the Budapest congress in 1988, in particular, there was a general feeling that mathematics educators from different parts of the world, countries, or even areas of the same country often talk past one another. There seems to be a lack of consensus on what it means to be a mathematics educator. Standards of scientific quality and the criteria for accepting a paper vary considerably among the more than 250 journals on mathematics education published throughout the world. The community of people concerned with research in mathematics education is increasingly divided into specialized groups and cliques that are not always tolerant of each other. Besides mutual understanding within the community, however, there is also a need to explain the domain to representatives of other scientific communities, among which the community of mathematicians seems to be the most important. Many people want to develop research in mathematics education within the academic community of mathematicians. This implies both the explanation of the research's purpose on a social ground (Is there any need to develop such research?) and its relevance within the narrow academic world. Questions arise as to scientific standards, dissertations, publications, congresses, the employment of young academics in the field, and the connection between this research and the research done in other fields. Thus we