4 - The Content of the School Mathematics Curriculum

Summary

The Present Position

We have referred earlier to the remarkable degree of uniformity of content so far as mathematics courses for the general secondary school pupil is concerned. Before beginning to look ahead, then, it is useful to see in which areas of the curriculum there are generally accepted goals. Here we shall draw on the findings of the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) and to its investigation of the courses followed by ‘all students in the grade in which the modal number has attained the age of 13.0 – 13.11 years in the middle of the school year’ (see Travers etal, in press).

First it is essential to draw attention to the three levels on which the content of the school mathematics curriculum can be viewed:

1. (a) the intended curriculum: what is prescribed in national and examination syllabuses;

2. (b) the implemented curriculum: what teachers teach;

3. (c) the attained curriculum: what students learn.

The easiest ‘curriculum’ to investigate is the intended, for it is this which is printed in official syllabuses.

Below we give a list of topics which some twenty countries (developed and developing) were asked to comment upon and to assign to them the weights very important (V), important (I), or not important (–). The composite weightings are shown in Table 4.1. (Here Is indicates important in some countries.) The cognitive level of behaviour expected from students on the topics is also shown, thus for example, a deeper grasp of decimals is usually required than of square roots.