It is an honor to follow Terry Wood, series editor of the first edition of the four volume International Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education (2008), as series editor of this second edition of the Handbook. As Terry indicated, she, Barbara Jaworski, Sandy Dawson and Thomas Cooney played key roles in opening up the field of mathematics teacher education “to establish mathematics teacher education as an important and legitimate area of research and scholarship” (Wood, 2008, p. vii). The field has grown significantly since the late 1980s “when Barbara Jaworski initiated and maintained the first Working Group on mathematics teacher education at PME [Psychology of Mathematics Education conference]” (p. vii) and over the last 10 years following the first edition of the Handbook. So, the editorial team, I and the four volume editors (Kim Beswick, Salvador Llinares, Gwendolyn Lloyd, and Despina Potari), of this second edition is honored to present it to the mathematics education community and to the field of teacher education in general.
This second edition builds on and extends the topics/ideas in the first edition while maintaining the themes for each of the volumes. Collectively, the authors looked back beyond and within the last 10 years to establish the state-of-the-art and continuing and new trends in mathematics teacher and mathematics teacher educator education, and looked forward regarding possible avenues for teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and policy makers to consider to enhance and/or further investigate mathematics teacher and teacher educator learning and practice, in particular. The volume editors provide introductions to each volume that highlight the subthemes used to group related chapters, which offer meaningful lenses to see important connections within and across chapters. Readers can also use these subthemes to make connections across the four volumes, which, although presented separately, include topics that have relevance across them since they are all situated in the common focus regarding mathematics teachers.
I extend special thanks to the volume editors for their leadership and support in preparing this handbook. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with them on this project. Also, on behalf of myself and the volume editors, sincere thanks to all of the authors for their invaluable contributions and support in working with us to produce a high-quality handbook to inform and move the field of mathematics teacher education forward.
Volume 4, The Mathematics Teacher Educator as a Developing Professional, edited by Kim Beswick, focuses on the professionalization of mathematics teacher educators, which, since the first Handbook, continues to grow as an important area for investigation and development. It addresses teacher educators’ knowledge, learning and practice with teachers/instructors of mathematics. Thus, as the fourth volume in the series, it appropriately attends to those who hold central roles in mathematics teacher education to provide an excellent culmination to the handbook.
References
Wood, T. (Series Ed.), Jaworski, B., Krainer, K., Sullivan, P., & Tirosh, D. (Vol. Eds.). (2008). International handbook of mathematics teacher education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.