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The Royaumont Seminar as a Booster of Communication and Internationalization in the World of Mathematics Education

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Modern Mathematics

Part of the book series: History of Mathematics Education ((HME))

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Abstract

After a succinct description of the meeting opportunities for mathematics educators up to the 1950s, this chapter describes how, in the wake of the New Math/modern mathematics reform movement, meetings have become a fundamental tool for focusing on problems and potential of reform proposals. Bodies that have played the most relevant roles are ICMI, CIEAEM, OEEC/OECD, and UNESCO. In the conferences that followed the Royaumont Seminar, particular interest was turned to the search for new axioms for geometry, with many proposals and discussions. But modern mathematics was not just this; in other places, the attention was turned to more general questions of a methodological and social nature. This congress season has fostered the creation of new traditions such as the birth of journals specialized in mathematics education, and periodic conferences on mathematics education, as exemplified by the four-year ICMEs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    CIEM stands for Commission Internationale de l’Enseignement Mathématique, IMUK stands for Internationale Mathematische Unterrichtskommission (see, e.g., Howson 1984).

  2. 2.

    The complete list can be found in https://www.cieaem.org/index.php/en/meetings-en/previous-meetings

  3. 3.

    The questionnaire (see Appendix B in OEEC (1961a), pp. 221–237) was sent to the OEEC member countries, and to Canada, the United States, and Yugoslavia. Only Spain did not answer, so the survey lists 20 countries. The results of the survey, divided by countries, with the exception of Canada. were also presented to OEEC (1961b).

  4. 4.

    As explained above, the official sections of the Seminar are three. The Section IV found by Schubring (2014b) may have been suppressed or may correspond to sub-chapter IV of the report, which indeed contains the “Extracts from Dr. Wall’s remarks.”

  5. 5.

    In Steiner (1965) and UNESCO (1967) the final day is December 23. In the folder dedicated to Freudenthal (inventory number 1831) of the Noord-Hollands Archief the date is December 22.

  6. 6.

    We refer here to the paper version of the first issue of 1969 of the Internationale Mathematische Nachrichten, which has not been digitalized. The number 91 of the volume was repeated for the first issue of 1970.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Fulvia Furinghetti

  2. University of Rome Sapienza, Rome, Italy

    Marta Menghini

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  1. Fulvia Furinghetti
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  2. Marta Menghini
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  1. KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Dirk De Bock

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Furinghetti, F., Menghini, M. (2023). The Royaumont Seminar as a Booster of Communication and Internationalization in the World of Mathematics Education. In: De Bock, D. (eds) Modern Mathematics. History of Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11166-2_4

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