A Comparative Study On Mathematical Culture Of Chinese And French Textbooks

In Chinese "Mathematics Curriculum Standard of Senior High School", embodying cultural value of mathematics is one of the basic ideas. It explicitly indicates that students should primarily know about the interrelation between mathematics and the development of human societies, and experience scientific value, application value and humanistic value of mathematics. Recently, more and more researchers and teachers begin to pay attention to mathematical culture in mathematics education.In textbooks, the mathematical culture is classified into history of mathematics, mathematics in life, mathematics in science and technology, mathematics in arts and humanities in this paper. Furthermore, the methods of using mathematical culture are examined. The ways in which history of mathematics is used in textbooks include decoration, complementation, duplication, and accommodation. The methods of using other aspects of mathematical culture in textbooks are external and internal (including separability and inseparability).Three versions of senior high school mathematics textbooks are taken as the objects of this study, which are the version of People’s Education Press (PEP) and Shanghai Education Press (SEP) in Chinese and Belin Education (BE) in French. Methods of content analysis and comparation are adopted in this paper. The quantitative evaluation and the qualitative analys are carried on. Three research questions are studied:(1) What is the similarity and difference of presentation modes of mathematical culture among three versions of textbooks?(2) What is the similarity and difference of methods of using mathematical culture among three versions of textbooks?(3) So for as mathematical culture in French textbooks, which can be used for reference?Based on the research, the following conclusions are given:Mathematical culture mainly appears in exercises in PEP and BP, which is accounted for more than50%of the total, while distribution in column is balanced in SEP.PEP has most numbers of items of mathematical culture, which are greater than500. There are about280items of mathematical culture in SEP and BP. Items of mathematics in life are appeared most frequently in three versions of textbooks, while items of history of mathematics, mathematics in science and technology, mathematics in arts and humanities are less adopted.History of mathematics mainly consists of brief introductions of mathematicians, portraits of mathematicians and historial background of mathematical concepts in those three textbooks, which mainly appears in aside of textbooks. The methods of using history of mathematics mostly are decoration and complementation.Mathematics in life is focus on social life, while professional life is lest. BP pays more attention to entertainment life, and PEP pays more attention toeconomy life. All those three versions pay most attention to physics, and pay less attention to other subjects. There are many paints and architecture in BP, while Chinese textbooks are short of mathematics in arts and humanities. The main method of using mathematics culture is separability, while inseparability method is less adopted.Based on the conclusions, the following opinions and suggestions are given:(1) More attention should be paied to the connection between mathematics and other subjects;(2) Arts and humanities should be intergrated in mathematics textbooks;(3) While using history of mathematics, more methods includuing accommodation should be adopted;(4) Other contests of mathematical culture should be used in higher levels.