ABSTRACT
As we may see when we consider the history of acrimonious disputes about the content of the mathematics curriculum, school mathematics is not neutral or value free. Whether about Euclidean geometry and ‘New Maths’ (Moon, 1986), long division (Hoyles, Newman, & Noss, 2001) or the comprehensive ‘reform’ versus ‘traditional’ confrontation of the U.S. ‘Math Wars’ (Schoenfeld, 2004), the forms that these arguments take demonstrate that choices about mathematical content and the ways it is to be presented to students are not based solely on logical considerations. Rather they involve, explicitly or implicitly, cultural values, concepts of the disciplinary nature of mathematics itself and of its role within society, theories of learning, of teaching, and of the nature of students.
