Book review: Asian research in mathematics education: mapping the field

Citation

Suh, H. (2024), "Book review: Asian research in mathematics education: mapping the field", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 386-389. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-08-2024-295

1. Introduction

Educational inclusion is vital for global sustainability. Educational research on inclusion and social justice contributes to this sustainability by identifying discrimination in the classroom, understanding whose knowledge is reflected in the curriculum and determining whether certain educational policies actually maintain educational discrepancies. This research has been conducted at both the local and global levels but, because international mathematics assessments such as TIMSS and PISA are held periodically, educational inclusion at the global level has gained particular attention from researchers and policymakers. Despite this interest, however, not all regions are equally represented in mathematics education research. Asia is one of these under-represented regions (Mesa and Wagner, 2019). The book Asian Research in Mathematics Education: Mapping the Field is a timely contribution to the attempts to improve inclusiveness in mathematics education research and practice. This review summarizes the book and suggests implications for researchers seeking to expand upon its ideas.

2. Inside the book

The book contains eight chapters, the first three of which discuss the culture of mathematics education research, while the latter five review mathematics education research. The countries covered in the book include the Philippines, China, Singapore, Korea, Turkey, Macao and Indonesia. The first chapter investigates the research culture surrounding graduate education in the Philippines. The second chapter presents an account of the Beijing Mathematics Education Seminar in China using the cultural–historical activity theory. The third chapter outlines the establishment and development of the culture of mathematics education research at the National Institute of Education of Singapore. After reviewing how the research culture has been nurtured in three countries, the book moves on to a review of specific studies in the remaining five chapters, which take a descriptive approach in providing an overview of published research. The fourth chapter analyzes doctoral dissertations from the Philippines based on the research topics, the target participants, the roles of the stakeholders and the theoretical frameworks used. The fifth chapter presents a summary of two studies on the trends in Korean mathematics education research. The two studies employed content analysis and topic modeling on research articles published in Korean journals. In the sixth chapter, mathematics education research published in three Turkish journals is examined. The articles were classified based on research methods and research topics. The seventh chapter focuses on research related to the PISA assessment in Macao, China. The chapter also suggests the field to diversify the topic of research and the methods. The last chapter explores research trends in Indonesia. In particular, the type of research, research topic, research focus, educational level and research output are used to classify research funded by National Competitive Research in Indonesia.

3. Two possible directions to extend the ideas of the book for inclusive education

3.1 Research that goes beyond searching for the scientific truth

This book contributes to the sustainability of educational research and policy-making internationally by focusing on mathematics education research in the Asian region. Using the book as a starting point, I suggest two possible directions to extend it further. First, more research should be conducted in a way that reflects how Asians make sense of the world. The book mainly represents descriptive and scientific approaches that are rooted in the Western understanding of knowledge. Assuming that narrowly defined scientific research is the only valid knowledge is unethical because it disrespects alternative ways of making sense of the world. In particular, this should not occur in educational research because this perspective hinders the development of educational policies to establish social justice. For example, researchers studying mathematics education and educational matters in general have documented the detrimental effects of the mismatch between a student’s home culture and the mainstream culture. In light of this, researchers have investigated marginalized students’ home culture, suggested that teachers and teacher educators learn about students and have designed curricula and materials that can embrace students from various backgrounds. In addition, researchers have studied indigenous ways of doing mathematics and developed mathematics curricula that align with the views of indigenous people rather than traditional Western thought. Some of these studies have been conducted in the USA and Canada, where classrooms are culturally diverse.

From a global perspective, Asia can be considered a marginalized group in which their own ways of doing mathematics have almost been lost and replaced with abstract mathematics originating from Western countries. This does not just marginalize a small number of students in the classroom but all students in all schools. To counter this, at least in Korea, researchers have identified historical figures who could be classified as mathematicians and scientists and revealed the mathematical elements of traditional architecture, adding this information to mathematics materials as enjoyable side stories. However, these efforts, though valuable and necessary, are insufficient. Consider the example of a curriculum developed according to the worldview of an indigenous people. Can a mathematics curriculum reflecting the Korean worldview be developed? For this to happen, researchers need to first decolonize themselves from scientific research. The research discussed in the paragraph above was made possible by researchers who stood for social and socio-political turns that advocate research for emancipation and deconstruction rather than prediction and understanding (Stinson and Walshaw, 2017). There are incidences in this book where the authors expressed their wish for more innovative approaches. For example, Atweh and colleagues stated in their chapter that they are expecting their work to contribute to “identify[ing] possible quality issues with [mathematics educational research at the doctoral level], particularly, with respect to their theoretical formulation, and importantly, to identify possible silences in that research toward increasing its diversification” (p. 70). Later in the chapter, the authors emphasized the necessity of “research that is informed by critical and sociopolitical perspectives” (p. 91), which openly disagrees with the notion of a single, objective, and scientific truth and is geared more toward the embrace of multiple truths. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond the research approaches described in this book and adopt alternative ways of thinking when conducting mathematics educational research and when doing mathematics itself. A postfoundational approach could be an option in this respect (Mazzei and Jackson, 2023). If a researcher remains in an intellectually colonized space, subsequent educational policies may fail to properly address social justice in an educational context.

3.2 Critical reflection of the knowledge distribution system

Another possible extension of this book is to critically investigate the knowledge distribution system. This book discusses research articles and dissertations that have been accepted and published. However, not all rejected research work is of low quality. Innovative and creative research is often rejected due to the ignorance of journal editors and reviewers (Gutiérrez, 2013). Therefore, a critical investigation of what knowledge is accepted and what is rejected is necessary to fertilize the educational research field with various approaches, epistemologies, ontologies and philosophies. In fact, the current knowledge distribution system may discourage researchers from even attempting to use innovative approaches in their research. For example, to publish an article in Korea is expensive. This not only includes the costs of data collection and analysis but also the money needed for articles to be processed. Researchers need to pay a compulsory annual membership fee of $50–$100 for an academic society in order to submit a manuscript to a journal published by that society. Many Korean journals also collect fees from researchers for sending in their manuscript for review. This typically costs around $100. Having a manuscript rejected means that $160 is gone. After acceptance, researchers are almost always responsible for editing their manuscript so that it is ready for printing. In addition, researchers pay publication fees based on the length of the manuscript. This cost is twice as high for manuscripts with founding sources, reaching about $500 or more. Despite these charges and extra labor, the journal holds the copyright for the manuscript. Submitting manuscripts to non-Korean journals may be an option but this is also expensive. Although a number of international journals do not collect fees, they ask researchers to take responsibility for English editing. Some publishers periodically send e-mails introducing their English editing services for academic writing. It almost seems as if English editing has become a side business for the publishers. English editing for a manuscript of an average length costs about $1,000. A revision request also means extra expenditure with an uncertain return.

Most universities cover these fees for full-time professors. Researchers at the beginning of their career are victims of this system. When a rejection means monetary hardship with no return, researchers are likely to choose the safe route from the beginning by doing conventional research or co-author with full-time professors who can cover some of the expenses. In this knowledge distribution system, which is inherently unfavorable for early career scholars, it is unrealistic to expect research that addresses social justice using innovative approaches to flourish. History proves that any community ignoring productive dissonance and choosing to maintain the status quo will eventually wither. Therefore, for Asian mathematics education research to be sustainable, a critical reflection on the knowledge distribution system is required.

4. Conclusion

Overall, this book, which summarizes the work of Asian researchers, is a wonderful contribution to global educational research. More of such work is needed to enhance social justice and the sustainability of educational research. There is no guarantee that more room for social justice in this research field will directly translate into social justice at the classroom level. However, restricting the space for social justice in educational research will prevent classrooms from becoming more socially just and inclusive for all students. That said, this book should function as a starting point rather than the end of researchers’ efforts to make education more inclusive and sustainable.