This question (what is the philosophy of mathematics education?) provokes a number of reactions, even before one tries to answer it. Is it a philosophy of mathematics education, or is it the philosophy of mathematics education? Use of the preposition ‘a ’ suggests that what is being offered is one of several such perspectives, practices or areas of study. Use of the definite article ‘the ’ suggests to some the arrogation of definitiveness to the account given. 1 In other words, it is the dominant or otherwise unique account of philosophy of mathematics education. However, an alternative reading is that ‘the ’ refers to a definite area of enquiry, a specific domain, within which one account is offered. So the philosophy of mathematics education need not be a dominant interpretation so much as an area of study, an area of investigation, and hence something with this title can be an exploratory assay into this area. This is what I intend here. Moving beyond the first word, there is the more substantive question of the reference of the term ‘philosophy of mathematics education’. There is a narrow sense that can be applied in interpreting the words ‘philosophy ’ and ‘mathematics education’. The philosophy of some area or activity can be understood as its aims or rationale. Mathematics education understood

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine rural high school mathematics teachers ‘ responses to the initial implementation of Louisiana‘s Comprehensive Curriculum during their second year of involvement in a professional development program. The curriculum changes were the culmination of an alignment between standards, curriculum, assessments and instruction which exemplified the shift to standards-based accountability and high-stakes testing characteristic of post-NCLB systemic reform efforts. I further investigated some of the discrepancies between the teachers ‘ professed beliefs about mathematics and their classroom practices. The research questions probed the responses of forty-seven teachers to the implementation of the Comprehensive Curriculum, their impressions of the impact of the professional development program, and the nature of mathematics as portrayed in the new curriculum. The study was framed in symbolic interactionism and grounded theory. The concerns and interests of the rural mathematics teachers guided the interview discussions and some of the observations. Data sources included surveys, participant-observations, interviews and other documents. Predetermined and constant comparative coding themes contributed to the constant