Hélène Gispert

Philosophical, multicultural and interdisciplinary issues

School mathematics reflects the wider aspect of mathematics as a cultural activity. From the philosophical point of view, mathematics must be seen as a human activity both done within individual cultures and also standing outside any particular one. From the interdisciplinary point of view, students find their understanding both of mathematics and their other subjects enriched through the history of mathematics. From the cultural point of view, mathematical evolution comes from a sum of many contributions growing from different cultures.

History of mathematics for trainee teachers

The movement to integrate mathematics history into the training of future teachers, and into the in-service training of current teachers, has been a theme of international concern over much of the last century. Examples of current practice from many countries, for training teachers at all levels, enable us to begin to learn lessons and press ahead both with adopting good practices and also putting continued research efforts into assessing the effects.

Societal, Structural, and Conceptual Changes in Mathematics Teaching: Reform Processes in France and Germany over the Twentieth Century and the International Dynamics

This paper studies the evolution of mathematics teaching in France and Germany from 1900 to about 1980. These two countries were leading in the processes of international modernization. We investigate the similarities and differences during the various periods, which showed to constitute significant time units and this in a remarkably parallel manner for the two countries. We argue that the processes of reform concerning the teaching of this major school subject are not understandable from within mathematics education or even within the school system. Rather, the evolution of the processes of reform prove to be intimately tied to changing conceptions of modernity according to respective social and cultural values and to changing epistemological conceptions of mathematics. It is particularly novel that we show the key impact of the changing social status of primary schooling for these modernization processes.

Pourquoi, pour qui enseigner les mathématiques? Une mise en perspective historique de l’évolution des programmes de mathématiques dans la société française au XXe siècle

Evolutions of mathematical curricula in French society have been marked by the successive answers intitutions have given to the following question since one century: Why and whom teaching mathematics? Here I present two of these, one given in 1908 and one in 1967. Each symbolises a breaking period of reforms in secondary mathematics teaching in France. We will see in the two first part of this paper that they belong to two different worlds, with social, institutional, ideological and mathematical specific features. In the third part, I’ll focus on geometry, showing the effects of the different answers concerning the public and the aims of mathematical teaching.

Historical support for particular subjects

This chapter provides further specific examples of using historical mathematics in the classroom, both to support and illustrate the arguments in chapter 7, and to indicate the ways in which the teaching of particular subjects may be supported by the integration of historical resources.

Mathematics Education in France: 1800–1980

This chapter studies the evolution of mathematics teaching in France from 1800 to about 1980. It investigates the specificities of the teaching of mathematics – aims, content, and methods – for each social class during the first 150 years of this time period and the way democratization impacted this teaching from the 1960s onward . It argues that the evolution and reforms of the teaching of mathematics are not understandable within mathematics education or even within the school system. Rather, the evolution and process of reform prove to be intimately tied to changing conceptions of modernity according to respective social and cultural values and to changing epistemological conceptions of mathematics.