The privileging of English in mathematics education research, just a necessary evil?

Abstract

In mathematics education research, English has become the lingua franca in many situations. There are many advantages of having a lingua franca within such a diverse community. However in this paper, it is argued that the practices that are most affected by the need for a lingua franca, such as conference attendance and the writing of journal articles, also contribute to mathematics education research becoming monocultural, both in what is researched and how it is reported. Fictional dialogues are used to explore the construction of this monocultural nature of mathematics education research. In considering the collective praxis of researchers in this field, there is a need to identify the constraints on our possibilities for participating in those practices, along with the ways that those possibilities are affected by our participation. In this way, we not only begin a dialogue on these issues but have the possibility to locate other ways of participating.