There has been an increasing recognition over the last two decades that the context in
which learning occurs profoundly affects what is learnt and by whom. In much early
mathematics education research, knowledge was conceived as being simply a
property of the individual consciousness. The realisation that knowledge is
produced in situations (Lave, 1988; Wenger, 1998; Lerman, 2000) requires us to
move beyond an analysis of learning which is dependent on a psychological
representation of the mind alone and to consider instead the setting – its social
relationships, its cultural locality, the discursive frameworks available in the locale,
the social and political environment which frames it – and how that setting functions
generatively in the construction of knowledge. In other words, mathematics
education research has taken 'a social turn' (Lerman, 2000:19). Indeed, as Heather
Mendick et al state in their seminar paper, there is a recognition that mathematics
education is always already social.