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ZDM

, Volume 50, Issue 5, pp 813–826 | Cite as

Selection of content in high school mathematics textbooks: an international comparison

  • J. Wang
  • X. Lu
Original Article
First Online:

Abstract

As a component of the ongoing development of the mathematics curriculum in China, we compare the country’s high school mathematics textbooks with those of several other countries. We base our analysis on the assumption that textbooks, as primary printed teaching resources, are key tools for interpreting educational policy. In this paper, we compare what content is selected and how that content is presented in series of high school textbooks from China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States according to four core domains: algebra, geometry, statistics and probability, and calculus. We then discuss the implications of the analysis for the reform of the high school mathematics curriculum in China, particularly as it applies to the development of textbooks within that process of reform. The comparative results provide us with the opportunity to recognise the distinguishing features of the content and presentation of the Chinese mathematics curriculum and lead to some suggestions for future curriculum development.

Keywords

National curriculum in China Mathematics textbook High school Content selection and presentation International comparative analysis 

Mathematics Subject Classification

Primary 97U20 Secondary 97B70 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the Shanghai Municipal Education Administration (no. D1508), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (no. 18dz2271000), and the National Key Educational Project (no. ADA1000009). We would like to show our gratitude first to the project teams, especially the teams of related subprojects and the principal investigators Jianyue Zhang from People’s Education Press, Lijun Ye from Hangzhou Normal University, Jun Li from Deakin University, as well our colleagues Jiansheng Bao, Yuelan Chen, Jun Li, Binyan Xu, and Xiaoping Zhao for their hard work on the project. We thank Professor Gert Schubring from Instituto de Matemática, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Professor Lianghuo Fan from the University of Southampton, the United Kingdom, as the organizers of the II International Conference on Mathematics Textbook Research and Development (ICMT-II), for their invitation to us to develop this manuscript from a presentation we delivered at that conference, and Dr Jinyu Zhang for his great help in preparing the presentation. We are also immensely grateful to the three anonymous reviewers, and Professor Fan for their comments on the development of the manuscripts, although any errors are our own and should not tarnish the reputations of these esteemed persons.

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Copyright information

© FIZ Karlsruhe 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of Mathematical Sciences and Shanghai Key Laboratory of PMMPEast China Normal UniversityShanghaiChina

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