Editorial

As we welcome the new year, we present the first issue of the 25th volume of Research in Mathematics Education (RME). The journal is going from strength to strength, and presents a high-quality mix of relevant and innovative mathematics education research. For the first time this year, RME will also receive an impact factor, and in collaboration with the Editorial Board we will continue to work in ways that mean we can maintain the high quality mathematics education research with international and national relevance that is published in the journal.

The editorial team are developing the journal in several directions. In our recent Editorial Board Meeting we discussed several three key and relevant developments. Firstly, we want to continue and develop our diversity, in both the Editorial Board, as well the breadth of submissions to the journal. To this end, we are happy to report that the recent call for new editorial board members has led to further diversification of the geographical spread of the journal. As we expand the locations we receive submissions from, we think it is important that our editorial board members come from all parts of the world. This is an important step in improving the diversity of the journal. Diversity should not just be apparent in geographical background, but also reflect the “methods-agnostic” mathematics education journal we are. We will continue to work with an editorial board with a variety of research backgrounds and traditions, phases of education, mathematics education specialisations, and methodological expertise. A second theme is the desire for the journal to be both a publication for high quality mathematics education research, but also a “forum” where relevant and current themes that concern mathematics education are discussed in a scholarly way. With this in mind, we have previously commissioned commentaries to some of the journal articles accepted for publication. To extend this development, we are identifying themes and topics that evoke debate in the mathematics education research world, and commissioning article focused on these themes. Furthermore, there are topics where members of our community “shine”, for example by winning awards and prizes, and we want to celebrate these contributions to our community by inviting these individuals to publish a review of these themes and topics. Finally, the journal will continue to provide opportunities for high quality special issues on worthwhile mathematics education themes and topics. Although there will not be a special issue in 2023, guest editors have been appointed for special issues in 2024 and 2025.

The end of 2022 also brought us the sad news that Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Howson passed away. He has been a central figure in mathematics education and mathematics from the second half of the twentieth century. Geoffrey was actively involved in the establishment of the first ICME congresses, which in the course of the 1970s would lead to PME and the British Society for the Psychology of Learning Mathematics in 1978, which was to become the more inclusively named British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics in 1985. During those decades, Geoffrey also was Secretary of the Mathematical Association 1969–76, President in 1988, and an Honorary Member from 2002. He also was a Trustee of the seminal School Mathematics Project (SMP) 1967–96 and Chairman from 1984 to 1996. The School Mathematics Project had been formally launched at the Southampton Conference in 1961, and Geoffrey’s first position as lecturer in Southampton was linked to SMP. At the University of Southampton, he went on to become Professor in Mathematical Curriculum Studies in 1984, and served from 1990 to 1992 as Head of the Department of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Mathematical Studies. Internationally, Geoffrey was Secretary-General of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (1983–90). Geoffrey had a major hand in introducing the series of “ICMI Studies”, which we now still know well. In 2009, in this journal, Geoffrey honoured the memory of his great friend and colleague Brian Griffiths (Howson, 2009). After his retirement, Geoffrey stayed in touch with his Southampton colleagues and remained extremely interested in what mathematics education work our department was conducting. He continued to write about mathematics textbooks (e.g. Howson, 2013) and was the honorary chair of the first International Conference on Mathematics Textbook Research and Development, organised in Southampton in 2014 with this also being the year that his “history of mathematics education” appeared (Howson, 2014). Since then, Geoffrey kept up-to-date with the developments around reinvigorating the SMP project. It turned out that the mathematics textbook I used in my first mathematics teaching post in the Netherlands, was a Dutch adaptation of the SMP materials, which seemed rather apt when I arrived in Southampton. I also had great conversations with him up to 2019; when he could no longer travel, he was adamant I should help him with recording some videos for a mathematics education audience in Hungary. Geoffrey will be missed, but we hope that the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics will continue to work in the spirit of combining mathematical subject knowledge, quality research, and a thriving community that aims to improve mathematics education across the world.

Alf Coles has now left the editorial team and we thank him for his excellent and hard work for the journal. We also thank Kyla Smith for her work as our editorial assistant and welcome Gabriel Lee who is assisting the editorial team in their work for RME. We would also like to take this opportunity to show our appreciation for the continued support to the journal and our mathematics education field by the generous work of reviewers and members of the Editorial Board. The high quality of reviews not only enable us to maintain the high standards of the journal, but also support authors to improve and further develop their work, whatever the outcome. We appreciate the time and expertise you bring to the reviews, and the timeliness with which you return them to us, and in particular the time and energy spent on supporting authors in the early stages of their careers who may be publishing in an international journal such as RME for the first time.