The main association of for Mathematics Education (Research) in the three German-speaking countries Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland is Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik (GDM). It holds annual five-day conferences with more than 800 participants and annual or bi-annual summer schools for young researchers. Some mathematics teachers participate in the GDM, but also have an own association called Verband zur Förderung des MINT-Unterrichts (MNU). The GMD also cooperates intensively with the association for research mathematicians, Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV).
The ICMI Representative for Germany is selected in cooperation between GDM and DMV, and then formally nominated by the DMV board, as DMV is the IMU member association.
The main research journal of the GDM is Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik which publishes in German and English. GDM also holds the international journal ZDM – Mathematics Education, which operates worldwide and only publishes in English. The German-speaking GDM-journal Zeitschrift für Mathematikdidaktik in Forschung und Praxis is dedicated to the transfer of research into classroom practices.
Mathematics education research is conducted at nearly every university with a mathematics teacher education study program (currently 64 universities), the size of mathematics education research groups range between 1 faculty member without professorship and seven professors and 10 faculty members plus up to 50 PhD students).
The IPN Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education is an extramural research institute in the Leibniz Association with two research groups involved in mathematics education and the German Center for Mathematics Teacher Education attached to it to develop and investigate mathematics teacher professional development.
Germany is a federalist country in which teacher education programs differ between the 16 federal states. In all of them, initial teacher education are conducted in 4–5-year Bachelor or Master programs at universities which are then followed by 12-18 months practical trainings for novice teachers. Primary teachers are generalists and complete 20-55 ECTS (= 600 – 1650 hours workload) in a mathematics and mathematics education study program. Middle school and high school teacher usually choose two subjects and then study mathematics and mathematics education for 70 – 110 ECTS ( = 2100 – 3300 hours workload). Due to teacher shortage, a master degree in other study programs is treated as sufficient to enter the practical training also without mathematics education preparation.
All universities offering teacher education programs also hold the right to offer PhD programs in mathematics education research.
Germany is a federalist country in which each of the 16 federal states has an own state syllabus. Across federal states, the national standards harmonize the expectations for student competency outcomes in Grade 4, Grade 10 and Grade 12/13. More information on the German schools system in English is accessible here.
On the website of Kultusminister Konferenz you can find various resources about the curricula für the German mathematics school education. Unfortunately, there is no English translation or information in English.
The pdf files can be found here: