`Contemporary thinking on philosophy and the social sciences has
been dominated by analyses that emphasise the importance of language in
understanding societies and individuals functioning within them;
important developments which have been under-utilised by researchers in
mathematics education. This book reaches out to contemporary work in
these broader fields; drawing on original sources in key areas such as
Gadamer and Ricoeur's development of hermeneutics, Habermas' work in
critical social theory, Schutz's social phenomenology, Saussure's
linguistics and the post-structuralist analysis of Derrida, Foucault and
Barthes. Through examining the writings of these major thinkers it is
shown how language is necessarily instrumental in developing
mathematical understanding; but a language that is in a permanent state
of becoming, resisting stable connections to the ideas it locates. The
analysis offered extends from children doing mathematics to teachers
inspecting and developing their own professional practices.'