Oral History and Mathematics Education: Historiographical Research

Abstract

This chapter focuses on historiographic research in mathematics education carried out with the use of the oral history methodology. To this end, a panorama of the investigations of the Oral History and Mathematics Education Group is presented. The group works in a project intended to clarify how the training and activities of mathematics teachers have been developed in Brazil within different institutions, various school levels, and completely different times and environments. A general outline of the history of education and of teacher formation in Brazil is also presented. Key theoretical and methodological issues are discussed as to the participation of oral history in history research, and particularly in the history of mathematics education. Finally, this chapter presents a summary of what the research about mathematics teachers’ training and activities in Brazil have been showing through time. At the same time that the oral history methodology highlights and values peculiarities and individualities, this methodology has enabled the perception of characteristics which are common to many scenarios such as the lack, the urgency, and the discontinuity of training activities of mathematics teachers in Brazil.