Abstract
Despite the difficulties of writing a history of teaching vocational mathematics, two cases of teaching vocational mathematics are reported, those of Australia and Germany, and major trends are described. It is next to impossible to identify the role of mathematics at work by simple empirical research such as survey studies. Technology (in a broad sense) plays a major role in using and learning mathematics at work but hides mathematics from the general public. There is a tendency to turn vocational education institutions into institutions for general education, weakening the potential of vocational mathematics. Vocational education and the role of mathematics therein is a widely under-researched area.
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Notes
- 1.
This is not a joke, but a serious consideration.
- 2.
The ‘reference list’ offered by the official NCVER website on the ‘History of VET in Australia’ is quite revealing, see http://www.ncver.edu.au/resources/timeline/overview.html#Overview
- 3.
Unfortunately, the term ‘VET-student’ is not clearly defined in the document.
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Sträßer, R. (2014). History of Teaching Vocational Mathematics. In: Karp, A., Schubring, G. (eds) Handbook on the History of Mathematics Education. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9155-2_25
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