Evolution And Development In The Compiling Of Geometry Textbooks For Junior High Schools In China During The 20th Century

Geometry Curriculum is one of the focuses of previous international education reforms in mathematics. At the beginning of the 21st century, a new round of basic education curriculum reform was carried out in our country and it stimulated debate on how to deal with mathematics textbooks of geometric elements in the third stage of compulsory education. It was suggested that mathematics curriculum reform in basic education should not only learn the abroad for reference, but also learn the useful experiences from the history of textbooks development of primary and secondary schools. From the trace of educational development, the development of curriculum and textbooks are closely related. Therefore, it is of theoretical and practical significance for a new round of reform of mathematics curriculum of basic education to research into the changing process of geometry textbooks development and explore the characteristics and rules of evolution.Historical research, document comparison, case study and other methods are adopted to explore the evolution and development of junior high school geometry textbooks in the 20th century. The research mainly focuses on: (1) The process of its evolution and development; (2) Factors which influence the change of compilation; and (3) Lessons and implications for the reform of geometry textbooks for junior high schools.Based on major incidents which influenced the compiling of junior high school geometry textbooks in the 20th century, this dissertation provides eight stages in the evolutionary process, analyzes characteristics and problems of each stage, and puts in order the backgrounds and structure of the change process of compilation. The findings are :The first stage (1901-1922), geometric textbooks in China were mainly from the translation, edition, and adaptation of Japanese ones; geometry, algebra, and trigonometry were divided into different subjects, the justification system was in strict geometric proof system, the contents and exercises were complicated, partial, various and old. The second stage (1923-1928), influenced by integrationism of European and American mathematics education, especially American, an effort was made to mix geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and so on, and more effort was focused on linkage and integration, and the layout of the geometry system was disrupted. The third stage (1929-1949), experimental geometry started to be popular in China. Junior high school geometry textbooks in this period were organized with reasoning geometry after experimentation. At the same time, other geometry textbooks from translation were still used. The fourth stage (1950-1957), most of the textbooks were composed of translation, compilation, and adaptation of Soviet Union textbooks. Compared with those of the first half of the 20th century, contents were deleted and a strict system of proof in geometry was used. The fifth stage (1958-1965), after trying to end the short experiment of Euclidean approach, the compilation of junior high school geometry textbooks was re-established the traditional Euclidean approach. Geometry, algebra and trigonometry were compiled separately based on the different contents. The sixth stage (1966-1976), owing to the impact of the political campaign, the "basis, usefulness, and study" became the guiding principle of compilation of textbooks, when geometry, algebra and trigonometry were mixed together. The seventh stage (1977-1985), after using the mixture approach, the layout of textbooks were separated, a series of reforms were carried out to expand the proof system, delete complicated theory, prove theorems, and simplify the number of exercises. The eighth stage ( 1986-2000), after the policy of Nine Year's Compulsory Education, Education Council put forward the policy "one syllabus, many textbooks", many geometry textbooks of different editions for junior high school appeared, and the layout and contents were explored to some extent.Through an analysis of historical data of compilation of geometry textbooks for junior high schools, the dissertation explores main factors that affect the compiling of textbooks. External factors include the changes of politics, economy, social culture as well as the trend of textbook compilation around the world, the internal factors are the history of geometry development and education values in geometry educational they have in different stages.The analysis of the historical data and case study help to provide some guidance and implications: The fundament viewpoint of the textbooks compilation for junior high schools are both for the world and China; The shaky phenomenon in the separation and mixture of geometry textbooks compilation for junior high school should be treated in a dialectic way; The intersection of experimental and reasoning geometry is an important tendency to the geometry textbooks compilation.The author tries to make innovation in the dissertation: It is the first time to put in order the historical changes for nearly one hundred years about geometry textbook compilation for junior high school in a systemic way based on a large number of first-hand original materials. The main features in the study are as following:Firstly, the data is rich and real. A large number of original materials, historical changes about the compiling of geometry textbooks for junior high school are collected in the dissertation, particularly those textbooks from local educational reforms in the second half of the 20^th century are sorted out.Secondly, the perspective is new. With the survey from the historical background of changes of politics, economy and social culture, it has made efforts to have a preliminary analysis of different factors which affect the geometry textbook compilation for junior high school during the 20^th century.Thirdly, the standpoint of research is new. Based on historical analysis and reasonable argumentation, some experiences and implications are obtained for current compilation of geometry textbooks for junior high schools.There are several deficiencies in this dissertation, on the one hand, the theoretical deepness is not enough so that the historical data and argumentation had not been echoed mutually in an idea way, on the other hand, it is hard to avoid that the work of data collection is far from complete.