Values in Turkish middle school mathematics textbooks

Abstract

Mathematics is usually seen as a field in which there is no values. Such a situation causes only a few studies about values teaching to be done in mathematics education. But, mathematics is a field that has various values in it, and that must be considered seriously from this point of view. Values are taught implicitly rather than explicitly in mathematics classes when comparing to others. The same situation can be seen in other lesson textbooks. Thus, in this paper; how much importance do mathematics and its educational values have, are investigated at mathematics textbooks in 6th and 7th primary school graders in Turkey. For this purpose, total eight 6th and 7th grade mathematics textbooks, that were chosen by random approach, are analysed with semantic content analysis. As a result of analysis it has been fixed that rationalism, control and openness values among mathematical values are emphasized more than complementary pairs of formalistic view, theoretical knowledge, instrumental understanding, accessibility and evaluation both in 6th and 7th grades mathematics textbooks.