Cultural practices for the mobilization of mathematics history in high school textbooks

Abstract

The objective of this work is to study cultural practices of mobilization
of Mathematics History. Those practices are accomplished by authors of
mathematics textbooks for High School students. Moreover, those practices are considered here as symbolic forms and their study is based on an hermeneutics
analysis. Three types of documental sources have been crossed: first, collections
of textbooks of National Program of Textbook to High School 2005 (PNLEM);
second, interviews with the authors; third, comments published on PNLEM
catalog related to these Mathematics textbooks. The hermeneutic analysis
brought about a personalized interpretation of the semiotics patterns used by
some authors of mathematics textbooks in the sense of establishing a dialogue
with mathematics history. Doing so, the mathematics history would integrate
the contents of the mathematics textbooks for High School.