Remaking Math for All: A History of Planning Rational People and Society

• In Event: 54.080 - Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: 54.080-16 - Conversations of the Self, the Other, and the Disciplines

Abstract

Present efforts to improve elementary math education in the U.S. assume social progress toward equal opportunities by making math available to all. This relationship between social questions and math education has not always existed. It was not until post WWII in the U.S. that it became reasonable to think that all children’s achievement in math would improve society. This paper examines how math for all emerged historically and continues to shape the remaking of the math curriculum for all. It presents how reorganizing the school math curriculum was rationalized as a way to provide equal opportunities by developing all young people as citizens through the cultivation of civic and mental virtues ascribed to the rational kind of person.

Author

• Jennifer Diaz, Augsburg College