Mathematics Education Research in South Africa 2007–2015: Review and Reflection

Abstract

In 2009, a review of research in mathematics education published in the years 2000–2006 was reported in this journal (Venkat, Adler, Rollnick, Setati, & Vhurumuku, 2009). The review identified 150 research papers published across national and international journals. The driving interest in the review was to explore the relationship between the published research and policy and practice in mathematics education, and the extent to which the spread of research was inter-connected and so accumulating. The review (science was included but is not in focus here) identified themes emerging across the research and described evident connections across these strands, and links with educational policy and on-the-ground practices. The conclusions reached were that there was an established, albeit relatively young and also fragile, field of mathematics education research in the country, with biases towards small qualitative studies at the secondary level, and a relatively small number of articles in international journals in the field. This article reports on a similar review of published research in mathematics education in South Africa, now focused on the subsequent years 2007–2015. Almost a decade has passed, so it is an appropriate moment to look again at the current state and status of research in mathematics education in South Africa. We thus begin the article by summarising the methodology and findings of the 2000–2006 review