Abstract
This article reports a review of research in mathematics education in South Africa published in local and international journals in the period 2007–2015. The purpose of the review was to describe the landscape of mathematics education research in the country over the past (almost) decade. Findings indicate that the mathematics education research community has become more established, expanding quantitatively, with the number of articles identified being nearly double, in absolute terms, that in a similar review of research from 2000 to 2006. Trends identified in the earlier review persist, with a dominance of publications in local journals and on small-scale qualitative studies on secondary teaching and learning. There is, importantly, an increase in research on primary mathematics. The review includes critical reflection on these findings, opportunities and threats, new and old, and what these mean for the future of research in this field.
Acknowledgement
This work is based on the research supported by the South African Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology, and National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant no. 71218). Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the authors and the National Research Foundation does not accept any liability in this regard. Thanks to Forster Ntow for critical comments.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. A first version of this paper was presented at the 2016 SAARMSTE Conference, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa (12–15 January 2016).
2. See for example http://collections.nwu.ac.za/dbtw-wpd/textbases/accredited-journals.html, where there are links on the page to a ‘List of questionable, scholarly open-access journals’.
3. For description of the different universities in South Africa, see http://web.archive.org/web/20050301015907/http://www.sauvca.org.za/highered/