BOOK REVIEW Windows on Mathematics Education Research in Mainland China: a thematic review

A thematic review of the following books: In 2000, ICMI (the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction) initiated a comparative study of school mathematics education practices in East Asian and Western countries. The focus for the study was what was roughly identified as the Chinese/Confucian tradition (on one side) and the Greek/Latin/Christian tradition (on the other). The aim was to examine, and learn from, the different cultural contexts in which mathematics is taught and learnt. The resulting book (Leung, Graf and Lopez-Real, 2006) provides an insightful examination of various cultural contexts, and is especially helpful in enhancing ways of understanding the varying forms of mathematics education that exist across different countries. This thematic review continues the appreciation of different cultural contexts by examining three books-The Middle Path in Math Instruction: solutions for improving math education by Shuhua An, How Chinese Learn Mathematics: perspectives from insiders edited by Fan, Wong, Cai and Li, and Trends and Challenges in Mathematics Education edited by Wang and Xu (listed in alphabetic order by first author family name). Reviewing these three books, all published in 2004, provides the opportunity to gain insight into the practice of mathematics education research in mainland China, the country in which one in five of the world's population lives, and which has perhaps the world's oldest continuous civilization. Given that, until recently, only limited information in English was available about contemporary mathematics education research in China, the aim of this thematic review is to reveal some of the concerns of Chinese mathematics education researchers.