Movimento da matemática moderna no Brasil: estudo sobre a abordagem de números naturais em livros didáticos da década de 1960

Abstract

This research refers to the past in order to highlight elements that help us understand the impacts of the Modern Mathematics Movement (MMM) in textbooks, searching to reveal the implications in the pedagogical intentions of teaching natural numbers. Therefore, a documental research with qualitative approach was chosen to answer the following question of investigation: What is the approach of natural numbers in the context of the Modern Mathematics Movement in textbooks from 1960 to 1970? In the order to constitute the study, three mathematical textbooks published in the 1960s were selected: Matemática para a primeira série ginasial (1963) by Ary Quintella, Matemática Curso Ginasial (1967) by School Mathematics Study Group and Matemática Curso Moderno (1969) by Alcides Bóscolo and Benedito Castrucci. This research was theoretically based on Kline (1976), Búrigo (1989), Pinto (2005) and D’Ambrosio (2017) which highlight the context, characteristics and ideals defended by the MMM; the search to highlight the role of the textbook was based on Choppin (2004), Bittencourt (2004) and Valente (2008); in order to understand the secondary education math’s curriculum we recourse to Silva (2016). The process of analysis considered two phases: descriptive analysis and comparative analysis, that show us that the natural numbers were approached with a focus on counting and biunivocal relation. The textbooks points to the existence of traces of Modern Mathematics, identified through the incorporation of notions of the set theory, expressed in the representations of sets by braces and diagrams, belonging relation and the representation of the set of natural numbers by the letter ℕ. In any case, it’s important to highlight that each author appropriated the MMM proposals on they own way, and this tendency brought out different perspectives for the approach of natural numbers in math textbooks.