In 1861, when the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, the school system of the new state was organized in a highly centralized manner based on an 1859 law inherited from the Kingdom of Sardinia. This law, which with some changes regulated education in Italy until 1923, included the principle that the first two years of primary school should be compulsory for both boys and girls. A later law in 1877 reinforced this principle and led to more regular school attendance by girls, although, as the documents cited in this article show, the prejudice that literacy was unnecessary or even dangerous for women remained for many years. In elementary school curricula there were differences between math content aimed at females and that aimed at males. In secondary schools, math programs were not differentiated by gender, but for a long time access to these schools was difficult for girls. After elementary school, however, there was the teacher-training school called scuola normale (normal school), where girls could enroll. The math syllabuses were the same for boys and girls. In this article I focus on this type of school with the aim of understanding what math the girls encountered and how they reacted to it. As sources for my study I use answers to questions published in Italian mathematics journals addressed to students.

This article is the introduction to a special issue of the journal dedicated to the history of mathematics education of girls and young women. The article analyzes possible directions for research in this history. The authors discuss the general problematics of such research and briefly introduce the articles published in the special issue.

This paper treats an investigation on beliefs about autonomy held by 260 Finnish and 246 Italian seventh-grade students. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire consisting of 32 closed questions dealing with different aspects of mathematics teaching and learning, and three open questions on students' good and bad experiences in mathematics instruction and their wishes for good instruction. We have confined ourselves to the eight questions of the questionnaire identified as pertaining to the students' beliefs about autonomy in doing mathematics. The data was collected through the questionnaire allowed to outline the patterns of beliefs in each country and compare patterns with each other. We have identified a core of common patterns in the two countries which are mainly related to the issue of classroom interaction and to the students' need of their teacher's help. The biggest differences between the two countries were found in the items concerning the use of trial-and-error strategies and the possibility that the students solve mathematical problems on their own.

After a succinct description of the meeting opportunities for mathematics educators up to the 1950s, this chapter describes how, in the wake of the New Math/modern mathematics reform movement, meetings have become a fundamental tool for focusing on problems and potential of reform proposals. Bodies that have played the most relevant roles are ICMI, CIEAEM, OEEC/OECD, and UNESCO. In the conferences that followed the Royaumont Seminar, particular interest was turned to the search for new axioms for geometry, with many proposals and discussions. But modern mathematics was not just this; in other places, the attention was turned to more general questions of a methodological and social nature. This congress season has fostered the creation of new traditions such as the birth of journals specialized in mathematics education, and periodic conferences on mathematics education, as exemplified by the four-year ICMEs.

In this chapter, we first describe the Italian context when the proposals of reforms, generically indicated under the label of "new math" or "modern mathematics," were developed all around the world. The current mathematics programs dated to 1945, the main topic was geometry, taught according to a rooted tradition based on Euclid. The conference of Bologna in 1961, which followed those of Royaumont, Aarhus, and Zagreb-Dubrovnik, stimulated the Italian mathematicians to consider also for their country's reforms in the light of the proposals that emerged at the international level. With the collaboration of the Ministry of Education and under the aegis of OECD, they organized refresher courses on the new approaches suggested by modern mathematics, edited books, and supervised experiments in selected classes. The plan by the Ministry was not efficient; however, this ferment stimulated various meetings for developing new mathematics programs. These programs were never implemented and only a few notions of modern mathematics remained, but new ideas and new contacts began to circulate which slowly changed the Italian context.

In this paper, we describe an experiment in using history to work on problem-solving and the relationship between arithmetic and algebra. The students involved attended the first year of the Italian upper secondary school (grade 9). The original sources we used are problems from Italian treatises on arithmetic and algebra that appeared in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. At the beginning, we present these treatises, which belong to a widespread mathematical tradition. We then describe the classroom experiment: we administered 14 problems from ancient treatises accompanied by the request to solve them and write impressions and comments. Data were collected through written protocols and interviews. The analysis of the results focused on the strategies implemented in solving the problems, with particular reference to the use of arithmetic and algebra, and on the perception of the cultural aspect introduced by these problems in the students’ approach to mathematics. The findings show the difficulties of some students on topics, such as fractions and direct proportionality, which should have been acquired in earlier school years. Combining the use of history with aspects of research in mathematics education allowed us to outline some teaching implications linked to the use of history.

This chapter aims at giving an overview of the activities related to mathematics education presented during the International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICMs) from 1897 to 2006. Before mathematics education developed as a full-fledged academic discipline with its specific conferences and journals, the opportunities for international meetings in this field were limited, with a few exceptions, to the special sections dedicated to didactics of mathematics, which, starting from 1900, were included in the program of ICMs. These sections are often associated with other topics such as logic, history, philosophy, or popularization of mathematics. In some cases also special activities on didactics of mathematics were organized. In the didactic sections, important decisions were taken, for one the creation of CIEM/IMUK (Commission Internationale de l’Enseignement Mathématique/Internationale Mathematische Unterrichts-Kommission) in 1908. In some cases, the ICMs, gathering many researchers from all over the world, were also an opportunity to organize collateral activities dedicated to mathematics education.

This chapter contains the biographical portraits of the 54 members of the Central/Executive Committee of ICMI who passed away in the first 100 years of ICMI. Each of these portraits consists of a section of general biographical information and a section containing contributions to education and dissemination of mathematical culture. In the same vein, the bibliographic references are divided into a part containing a selection of works on the personage in question and his mathematical works and a part including publications linked to mathematics education and dissemination of mathematical culture (if any).

For a long time, mathematics educators have shown interest in the use of history of mathematics in mathematics teaching. This article discusses some interesting reasons put forwards by the supporters of this use and their epistemological assumptions. The initial part of the article provides a short account of the setting in which the first discussions and the first experiments concerning the use of history in mathematics teaching took place. Afterwards, the article outlines the development of the community of scholars interested in the relationship between history and pedagogy of mathematics, which in 1976 was officially established as the group HPM (History and Pedagogy of Mathematics) affiliated to ICMI (International Commission on Mathematical Instruction). The materials produced in this context constitute a background and a source for researchers and for mathematics teachers wishing to explore the opportunity offered by history in their teaching. About the introduction of history of mathematics in the classroom, the article focuses on two main streams of action: – history for promoting the image of mathematics as a vivid discipline with links with reality and culture, – history for dealing with mathematical concepts. An efficient introduction of history in teaching entails adequate teachers' historical knowledge. Then a part of this article is dedicated to discuss the role of this knowledge and to present how history may be used in teacher training programs. At the end of the article, some frequent objections put forwards by teachers about the possibility of introducing history in their teaching are presented. The conclusion is that, though there are difficulties and some contexts are not favourable to this introduction, in suitable contexts, the effort required for facing this endeavour will be rewarded by significant improvements in the classroom life.

The years after WWII up to the late 1960s were crucial in the evolution of ICMI (International Commission on Mathematical Instruction) for both the settlement of some institutional aspects (mainly concerning the relationship with mathematicians) and the establishment of new trends of the activities. By referring to unpublished documents, this paper focuses on the role of two key figures in those years: Heinrich Behnke and Hans Freudenthal. As ICMI Secretary and later as President, Behnke tried to reshape the newborn ICMI after WWII and clarify the relationship with mathematicians. His action was completed by Freudenthal, who, as ICMI President, broke with the past and promoted initiatives that fostered the development of mathematics education as an academic field and the independence of ICMI from the community of mathematicians. Keywords: history, ICMI, mathematicians, mathematics education

The International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics can be considered the parent of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). This chapter describes the activities and major ideas of this Commission from its foundation in 1908 through the First World War. A brief account of the events in the community of mathematicians that formed the background of this foundation is presented as well. The chapter also outlines the steps that first brought the dissolution of the Commission and, later, its reconstitution in 1928 during the International Congress of Mathematicians in Bologna.