New Math as a Popular Culture Phenomenon (1960 to 1980): The Shaping of Societal Knowledge and Beliefs About the Era’s Curriculum Reforms

History of Education Quarterly · 2026-03-03

Abstract This study analyzes 191 popular cultural artifacts referencing New Math and shows that broader cultural themes of the postwar era, including the urgent need and potential of technological progress, align with widespread beliefs about New Math. The analysis reveals that the public knew little about New Math and regarded it as a mysterious, powerful new technology that would empower the next generation. The study suggests that the public’s perceptions of New Math, and likely other educational reforms, were shaped in a social dialogue among producers and consumers of culture as much as by the content of those reforms.

Ideology and Public Opposition to the ‘New Math’ Reform Movement in the United States (1960 to 1980)

Analecta - Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii Nauki · 2026-03-19

This study explores public opposition to the American New Math reform movement through an analysis of readers’ letters published in major American newspapers from 1960 to 1980. The findings identify key themes in the public debate about the New Math curriculum, revealing that opposition extended beyond specific pedagogical criticisms to reflect broader ideological dispositions, including distrust of academic elites and nostalgia for traditional notions of authority. The study demonstrates that these ideological themes in letters critical of New Math aligned with the central messaging of the rising conservative movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This investigation of ideology in the public response to New Math suggests that educational reforms, regardless of their merits, may fail to gain lasting public support when they conflict with dominant cultural and political values.

The Power of an Opening Problem: A Pathway for Mathematics Teachers to Explore Formative Assessment

Mathematics Teacher Educator · 2024-09-01

In this Perspective on Practice , we describe an application of recommendations made in “Formative Assessment in Secondary ­Mathematics: Moving Theory to Recommendations for Evidence-Based Practice” (Kenney et al., 2022) , which was recently published in this journal. The authors made recommendations for mathematics teacher educators about conducting professional development sessions related to formative assessment. After conducting our own workshop for K–5 teachers and considering the recommendations of Kenney and her colleagues, we share our observations about the benefits of a good opening task for jumpstarting a productive session on formative assessment.

A Re-examination of the Nineteenth Century French Influence on American Mathematics Education through Textbook Author Charles Davies

WTM-Verlag eBooks · 2023

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Classics

Charles Davies was a prolific and influential nineteenth-century author of mathematics textbooks. Davies’s 1835 adaptation of Bourdon’s Élémens d’Algèbre is of particular interest because it forms part of a larger story about French influence on American mathematics education by way of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Prior studies have argued that French-American influence was undercut by the tendency of authors to alter the French analytic style of pedagogy for American audiences. This study adds to that line of research by giving more evidence of how this particular book originated and how the content was altered. It shows that Davies took credit for the translation of his subordinate, Edward Ross, and then simplified the book by removing modern mathematical concepts. Rather than spreading novel French ideas about mathematics, Davies’s 1835 algebra book and its many subsequent editions likely reinforced the status quo of American mathematics education for decades.

The Role of the United States Military Academy at West Point in the Formation of America’s Engineering Profession (1802 to 1850)

Histoire & Mesure · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

The United States Military Academy at West Point, founded in 1802, produced the nation’s first academically trained engineers and far more graduates than any other engineering program in America in the first half of the 19th century. Although these statistics suggest that the school had a profound effect on the engineering community at that time, the country in fact had a vibrant community of engineering practitioners who operated wholly apart from university engineering programs. This study explores the relationship between West Point and the engineering profession in the United States using data on the careers of the school’s graduates. It shows that despite the prestige and influence of West Point in elite circles, its role in shaping the engineering profession as a whole during these years was likely modest.

Building an American Mathematical Community from the Ground Up: Artemas Martin and the Mathematical Visitor

International studies in the history of mathematics and its teaching · 2022-01-01

Edgar J. Edmunds: A Historical Case Study of Race in Mathematics Education

Journal for Research in Mathematics Education · 2022 · 5 citations

• Sociology
• Mathematics education
• Mathematics

This article describes a historical case study of E. J. Edmunds, a Black mathematics student and teacher in 19th-century New Orleans. Edmunds’s career as a student and then teacher of mathematics, which stretched from the antebellum era through Reconstruction and into segregation, was filled with obstacles and indignities but also with improbable successes. Edmunds proved to be among the world’s top mathematical talents in 1871 by passing the grueling admissions exam for France’s École Polytechnique. The purpose of the present article is to examine the implications that this historically rare example of Black mathematical achievement in the 19th century has for metanarratives of Black obstacles and achievement in mathematics education.

COVID and the Importance of Casual Interactions in Mathematics Classrooms

Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College · 2021-06-23

Teaching in the Time of COVID

Edgar J. Edmunds (1851-1887): A crosscultural case study of an African American mathematics teacher who studied at the École polytechnique

WTM-Verlag Münster eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

• Mathematics education
• Mathematics
• Art

The late 19th century was a period of significant change in American mathematics education as the country started to open up to the advancements of continental Europe. At this time, mathematics departments at American universities began to look to European universities for inspiration, and American textbook authors began to incorporate European advances in mathematical content and pedagogy. Edgar Joseph Edmunds was a mathematics teacher who studied in France and taught in America at the dawn of this period of awakening and cultural exchange, and a study of his life and career gives new insight into this important period.

Edgar Joseph Edmunds (1851 – 1887), Mathematics Teacher at the Center of New Orleans’ Post-Civil War Fight Over School Integration

2020-01-01

This dissertation is a historical study of a nineteenth-century teacher of mathematics of African descent, Edgar Joseph Edmunds (“E. J. Edmunds”). The study traces the life and career of Edmunds, which spanned a period of social upheaval in the South – from the pre-Civil War era, through Reconstruction, and into the Jim Crow era of segregation. Edmunds’ career as a teacher of mathematics was, in some sense, unremarkable. He did not produce original mathematics and never held a position in a prestigious college or university. Edmunds is significant, however, in two respects. Edmunds was among the few known nineteenth-century American mathematical personages of African descent who, in spite of the legal restrictions and social obstacles endured by people of color, managed to achieve the highest level of mathematical education available at the time. As such, Edmunds serves as a historical example of both the hardships and the fleeting opportunities in nineteenth-century African-American communities. Edmunds’ life is instructive also because it intersected with institutions and events that are significant to the history of mathematics education and to the history of education generally. Edmunds tested into and attended the École Polytechnique in Paris, the vanguard of mathematics education at the time and the subject of much research in the history of mathematics education. When Edmunds returned to New Orleans to teach, he became the central figure in the city’s fight over racial integration in schools. By examining Edmunds’ life as a thread that connects institutions, events, and communities, we see these subjects from a different perspective and gain new insight. This study collects and analyzes documents from various government and archival sources to understand the facts and circumstances of Edmunds’ unusual life, but also to view the mathematics education of various nineteenth-century communities (French and American, black and white) though the lens of a man whose educational and career path took him though all of them.