A Comparative Study On Mathematical Culture In Senior High School Mathematics Textbooks

To reflect the cultural value of mathematics is one of the fundamental ideas on which the senior high school mathematics curriculum focus.It is of great significance in improving the teachers' teaching level and raise the students' mathematical literacy.Comparatively analyzing the cultural contents of the old and new senior high school mathematics textbooks is not only of assistance in improving teachers' understanding of the new textbooks and grasping their variating regularities,but also useful for reference in compiling the follow-up contents of the new textbooks.This article is to select the compulsory series of "General High School Curriculum Standard Experimental Textbook · Mathematics(Version A)" published by People's Education Press in 2007 and the "General High School Textbook · Mathematics(Version A)" published in 2019 as the research targets,by reference to the suggestions and requirements of the cultural contents of senior high school mathematics in the "Standards of General High School Mathematics Curriculum(Experiment)" and "Standards of General High School Mathematics Curriculum(2017)",applying methods of literature research,text analysis and comparative analysis to compare and analyze the selection,application level,column distribution and presentation form of the mathematically cultural contents in the textbooks.Meanwhile,based on the analysis results,this article further examines the performance of the mathematically cultural contents of the ‘Standards” in respect of the new and old versions of the mathematical textbooks,ultimately presents a teaching design under a cultural perspective.The study shows that there exists an imbalance in the selection of the cultural contents and the column distribution for the two editions of the textbooks,the applying level of the mathematical culture is higher in the new edition of the textbooks although its effectiveness of the presentation manner is lower than that of the old textbooks,the two editions of textbooks basically conform to the requirements of the "Standards" in the cultural contents of mathematics although there is a partial difference from the "suggestions for compiling textbooks",high school teachers can design a teaching model under a cultural perspective by learning from the existing cultural contents of the textbooks,seek more cultural contents outside the textbooks or relying on the "concept development process" and other strategies.The study suggests that the compilation of textbooks should appropriately increase the proportion of high-tech and humanities and arts,and reasonably arrange the columns,strengthen the applying level of the mathematical culture and enhance the effectiveness of the presentation forms,the textbook writers should accurately grasp the requirements of the "Standard" and mark the sources of information for selection,infiltrate traditional Chinese culture,the front-line teachers should accumulate extracurricular resources in the mathematical culture and continuously improve cultural literacy.