The process of disciplinarization of the Methodology of Mathematics Teaching

Author(s)

Viviane Lovatti Ferreira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2009-06-01

Examining board members

Maria do Carmo Santos Domite; Nuria Hanglei Cacete; Circe Mary Silva da Silva Dynnikov; Celi Aparecida Espasandim Lopes; Wagner Rodrigues Valente

• Advisor: Vinicio de Macedo Santos

Abstract

Since the first decades of the XXth century, it can be noticed the presence of a discipline whose constitution, operation and objectives are aimed towards the task of teaching how to teach mathematics. Historically, the discipline Methodology of Mathematics Teaching has appeared in the courses to prepare Mathematics teachers under several distinct denominations. In the years 1930s, it showed itself under the name of Special Didactics of Mathematics. In the 1960s, such denominations was replaced by Practice of Mathematics Teaching, under the form of Supervised Stage. In the 1990s, a new terminology appears: Methodology of Mathematics Teaching. Throughout such changes, the backgrounds and features of that discipline has been changing. The present work had as its main goal to understand the historical process of disciplinarization of the Methodology of Mathematics Teaching in undergraduate courses, searching the origin and the historical development of that discipline, identifying contents and methods proposed as well as the changes through which that discipline had passed. The motive in proposing and putting into practice such study came up from the need to acknowledge the epistemological status of the discipline, in order to understand its place in the teaching preparation courses curricula. As a research method we have applied the documental analysis (teaching programs, text-books, and official legislation), the oral history (interviews) and the study of the literature concerning the subject. Our work is greatly based on the theories of André Chervel, who has proposed and studied the concept of discipline in the school context, emphasizing the factors that determine when a field of knowledge gets institutionalized and becomes what in general is called a discipline. The process of disciplinarization has been carried out by a similar path to that of the Mathematics Education research area, presenting features of plurality of knowledge, constituting, at final analysis, an interdisciplinar discipline. (AU)