Who cares about mathematics education?

TL;DR

This essay examines the integration of mathematics education within mathematics departments, highlighting the supportive and challenging environments faced by educators and emphasizing the need for greater inclusion.

Contribution

It provides a qualitative analysis of the current climate for mathematics educators in departments and discusses the complexities of their professional environments.

Findings

Mathematics education has become more prominent in departments.

Educators face a range of supportive and unsupportive climates.

The environment for mathematics educators is complex and evolving.

Abstract

In the past two decades, teaching and outreach have come to hold an expected place in more missions of mathematics departments and organizations. Still, there is more to do as a mathematical sciences community for mathematics education and mathematics educators to be fully included. This essay, published in the AWM Newsletter, demonstrates the prevalence of mathematics education in mathematics departments, and then discusses the variously supportive and unsupportive climates that mathematics educators experience in mathematics departments. The essay describes fractious, fragile, and fertile environments in mathematics departments.