Theory and Practice

This book describes and analyses the history of Dutch mathematics education from the point of view of the changing motivations behind the teaching of mathematics over a 200 year period. During the course of the 19th century, mathematics in the Netherlands developed from a topic for practitioners into a school topic that was taught to almost all pupils of secondary education.  As mathematics teaching gradually lost its practical orientation and became more and more motivated on the basis of its supposed formative value, the HBS (Hogere Burgerschool), the Dutch variant of the German Realschule, became the dominant school of thought for mathematics pedagogy. This book examines the gradual development of the field, culminating in the country-wide adoption of Realistic Mathematics Education as the new method of mathematics teaching.  This book is important for anyone who is interested in the history of mathematics education. It provides an interesting perspective on the development of mathematics education in a country that, in many aspects, went its own way.