History of Mathematics in the Turkish Middle School Mathematics Curriculum and Textbooks

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the history of mathematics incorporated into Turkish middle school mathematics curriculum (5 th -8 th grades) and textbooks. The data were collected through document analysis from the Turkish middle school mathematics curriculum guide (5 th -8 th grades) and six Turkish middle school mathematics textbook series approved by the National Board of Education. According to the results gathered from the math curriculum, only one reference of the history of mathematics was found in the sixth-grade learning objectives and a few suggestions acknowledging the use of the history of mathematics in the learning and teaching process. No trace of the history of mathematics found in the content and assessment aspects of the curriculum. Further, the total number of the instances of the history of mathematics found in the six Turkish middle school mathematics textbooks for 5 th -8 th grade is only twenty-seven. Most of the references found in the math textbooks were placed in the introduction part of the topic. Based on the findings, it is obvious that the history of mathematics was used like a rarely-found appetizer both in the curriculum and the textbooks.