A comparative study of educational practices for school mathenatics in Brazil and Argentina in connection with the creation of the modern state

Abstract

This aim of this article is to create a comparison between the educational practices used to teach mathematics in schools in Brazil and Argentina. The methodology used in this study was Comparative Research in Education (CRE), based on comparative studies already conducted between Brazil and Portugal by the Mathematics Education History Research Group (Grupo de Pesquisa História da Educação Matemática - GHEMAT). The central discussion in this paper is the historical construction of mathematics education in school (in Brazil and Argentina) and attempts to denaturalize school mathematics. In this work, we argue that political changes, i.e., the construction of the “Modern State” with its bureaucratic bias, have contributed to the creation of a specific type of mathematics: “Modern Mathematics.” During the colonial period, under the Jesuit aegis, there was no requirement for a high degree of specialization in school mathematics in Brazil and Argentina. The Modern State, represented in an elucidative manner by the French Revolution and the English Revolution, allowed the instruction to expand beyond the need for mathematics with a higher degree of specialization. In Brazil and Argentina, a particular form of state began to appear in the 1960s: The Modern, Bureaucratic and Authoritarian State, which was closely tied to a form of mathematics proposed by the Bourbaki group; a form of mathematics that concerned unity in itself with alleged neutrality and little social perspective.