Mathematics Education: A Vision of Its Evolution

Teaching in general and teachingof mathematics in particular are matters ofgreat importance for contemporary society.Over the years, societies have establishedinstitutions in order to incorporatemathematics and science into the culture ofsociety with the clear intention ofencouraging a scientific vision of theworld among the population. This intensesocial process of scientific enlightenment has helped us recognize theneed to implement educational modificationsin the specific field of mathematics basedon designs that are better adapted toschool practices. Mathematics educationdeals with the systematic study of theeffects of such processes; in this paper,we have decided to describe a certainevolution of its research problems. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.