A Cross-National Comparison of Turkish and American Mathematics Textbooks in Terms of Fraction Division Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare Turkish and the US mathematics textbooks with respect to contexts involved in fraction division tasks. To this end, three sixth grade mathematics textbooks from Turkey (TR1, TR2, and TR3 were published by the Ministry of National Education, Sevgi Press, and Dikey Press, respectively) and three sixth grade mathematics textbooks from the US (US1 and US2 were published by McGraw-Hill Education and US3 was published by Pearson Scott Foresman) were selected considering their up-to-dateness and representativeness. Textbooks were compared based on the number and variety of fraction division task contexts. The findings showed that the number and context of fraction division tasks varied to a considerable extent both within and across the selected two education systems. More than half of the Turkish textbook tasks and only a quarter of the US textbook tasks were contextual. The US textbooks included more varied task contexts compared to Turkish textbooks. More specifically, food and beverages context was existent in all textbooks. Shopping context was non-existent in the US textbooks, while student dependent contexts, sports, land, painting, animals, geography, free time activities, recycling, auto accessories, and room contexts were absent from Turkish textbooks. The implications for textbooks developers in providing students more quality learning opportunities in terms of fraction division contexts were discussed.