Book Review: … A Review of Mathematical Relationships in Education: Identities and Participation

What might a book that is based on a seminar series titled Mathematical Relationships: Identities and Participation and held in the United Kingdom during 2006–2007 have to say to the international mathematics education community? How might the mathematical relationships of learners in a specific national setting resonate with those who seek a hold on the identities and participation of learners in other mathematics classrooms? The answer is through theory. Circumstance and setting may vary, but the theoretical notions put to use in this book have the potential to be extremely powerful in unearthing the kinds of relationships that learners, across cultures and locations, might form with mathematics. The book is a timely intervention precisely because we are only now beginning to appreciate that issues relating to learners' relationships with mathematics are among the most complex and challenging facing us today.