The Tenth International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching conference was held at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, June 24–28, 2009. The conference was generously hosted by the university’s HPS Graduate Program and the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values.

The Conference Chairs were Don Howard and Greg Macklem. The IHPST group and all who attended the conference owe them a debt for their energetic and careful guidance of the conference.

Earlier conferences of the IHPST group had been held in Tallahassee (1989), Kingston (1992), Minneapolis (1995), Calgary (1997), Pavia (1999), Denver (2001), Winnipeg (2003), Leeds (2005) and Calgary (2007). Each conference brings together a rich mixture of historians, scientists, philosophers and educators who present research on the manifold ways in which the history and philosophy of science engages with theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Since their commencement in 1989, the IHPST conferences have combined serious scholarship with convivial and collegial personal engagements. This tradition was continued at Notre Dame.

There were 110 papers submitted to the conference. The papers collected together in this journal special issue are the subset of those that were submitted to the journal and were accepted for publication after peer review in the journal’s normal manner and satisfactory revision by the authors.