Empirical Investigations of Creativity and Giftedness in Mathematics: An International Perspective

Abstract

The idea for this book originated at the first joint meeting of the Korean Mathematical Society and the American Mathematical Society, held in Seoul, South Korea, on December 16–20, 2009. Contributing authors from Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Israel, Iran, China, Canada, South Korea, and the United States provide international perspectives on creativity and giftedness in mathematics education. The vast majority of the book is comprised of reports from empirical studies. In this respect, the book is not theory driven, per se. Instead, the focus is on reporting findings from studies in an attempt to elucidate the relationship between giftedness and creativity in mathematics. In this review, I provide a brief synopsis of each chapter (except Chapter 1, which outlines the book) and discuss the relevance of the work to the literature on mathematical creativity and giftedness. The overview of the chapters is followed by general remarks on the state of mathematics education research on creativity and giftedness and final thoughts about the contribution of this book to the field.