The Theoretical Change And Controversy Of Primary School Mathematics Teaching Syllabuses And Curriculum Standards In China

China has promulgated four primary school mathematics teaching syllabuses and curriculum standards since the 1990 s.The reform of mathematics education relies on in-depth analysis of mathematics education ideas,and it also reflects certain philosophical concepts.During this period,debates on mathematics education in our country have never stopped.The essence of these arguments is the game of empiricism and rationalism in the field of mathematics education philosophy.Based on the contradictory perspectives of empiricism and rationalism in mathematics education philosophy,in this study we explore the differences between the curriculum standards and teaching syllabuses of primary school mathematics in our country and the theoretical differences behind it.Herein,we selected four documents,two of them are primary school mathematics teaching syllabuses in 1992 and 2000,and the others are mathematics curriculum standards for compulsory education in 2001 and 2011.Based on these documents,three views in mathematics education philosophy,i.e.,mathematics view,mathematics education object view and mathematics teaching view,are chosen as the analysis framework,and the teaching syllabuses and curriculum standards are compared.We found that the trend of the controversy in the study of mathematics education philosophy in China is to find the balance between empiricism and rationalism,which manifests in that mathematics education should take “life math” as a starting point and finally rise to “mathematization”.In general,from the teaching syllabuses to the curriculum standards,the mathematics education philosophy presents a tendency of becoming balanced between rationalism and empiricism.From the aspects of mathematics view,mathematics education object view and mathematics teaching view,the pursuit of math teaching syllabuses and curriculum standards implies two different hypothesis and value pursuit of mathematical empiricism and rationalism.The teaching syllabuses are biased towards rationalism,elitism education and they focus on the results.The curriculum standards tend to empiricism,public mathematics and focus on the process.Besides,the new change in the “revised edition of the curriculum standard” embodies both the empiricism and rationalism mathematics education philosophy.The difference between this study and previous studies lies in the fact that most of the previous studies only refer to the change of the philosophical thought of mathematics education,namely from rationalism to empiricism.While this study finds that Chinese primary school mathematics teaching syllabuses and curriculum standards not only embody the evolution of mathematics education philosophy from rationalism to empiricism,but also take on the trend of balancing between empiricism and rationalism.In addition,what surprised me most was that the “revised edition of the curriculum standard” reflected a renewed emphasis on rationalism.This change has some internal correlation with a series of criticisms of empiricism(including pragmatism)in mathematics education in the field of mathematics education theory in the past two decades.