A virtual special issue to celebrate 100 volumes of Educational Studies in Mathematics: former editors’ choices

To celebrate that Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) founded Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM) about 50 years ago (in 1968), and that our journal has reached its 100th volume, we asked former editors (Table 1) to select highly significant articles previously published in ESM and to explain their choices. This, admittedly, was a cruel request, and many former editors were in despair which papers to propose given the many excellent publications in the years of their editorship. Yet, on the basis of their own personal criteria, they all responded. Below you see their choices. Their accompanying texts give a flavor of what they valued as editors and would like to see more of in ESM. Because Freudenthal of course could not make his own choice, we chose for him, namely the very first paper in the journal, his introductory address titled Why to teach mathematics so as to be useful. Taken together, they give a sense of the impressive intellectual achievements of mathematics education researchers over the past 50 years.