A Volume in International Perspectives on Mathematics Education- Cognition, Equity & SocietySeries Editor Bharath Sriraman, The University of Montana and Lyn English, QueenslandUniversity of TechnologyWhy a book on gender issues in mathematics in the 21st century? Several factors have influenced theundertaking of this project by the editors. First, an international volume focusing on gender and mathematicshas not appeared since publication of papers emerging from the 1996 International Congress onMathematical Education (Keitel, 1998). Surely it was time for an updated look at this critical area ofmathematics education. Second, we have had lively discussion and working groups on gender issues atconferences of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education [PME] for the past fouryears, sessions at which stimulating and ground-breaking research has been discussed by participants from many different countries. Some publicationseemed essential to share this new knowledge emerging from a wider variety of countries and from different cultural perspectives. Third, some westerncountries such as Australia and the USA have experienced in recent years a focus on the "boy problem," with an underlying assumption that issues offemales and mathematics have been solved and are no longer worthy of interest. Thus it seemed timely to look more closely at the issue of gender andmathematics internationally. When the idea for this volume first emerged, invitations w...