Mathematics Education in Spain and Portugal
Spain 
Elena Ausejo 
 
This section offers a brief overview of Spanish mathematics education over the last two centuries, in the context of the educational system as a whole, which in turn depended to a very large extent on the country’s political and economic circumstances. Although political instability delayed the regulation of secondary education in Spain until 1836, the syllabi of 1845 and 1857 set up the basic structure throughout the nineteenth century. The country developed a system for preparing mathematics teachers that was relatively demanding – above all with respect to mathematical knowledge – and absorbed international experience through translations of textbooks. Later, Spain took part in the principal international movements in mathematics education, becoming involved in the ICMI and the reform movements of the 1950s–1970s.
Changing representations and practices in school mathematics: the case of Modern Math in Portugal
The curricular movement known as Modern Mathematics aimed at the transformation of representations and practices in school mathematics. Its study provides us with ways of understanding how these changes came about. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the ways in which representations of school mathematics gradually were influenced by ideas from the Modern Mathematics movement, how these new ideas merged into local educational traditions, and how they were transformed into meaningful practice. This work is centred on the Portuguese context from the middle 1950s to the middle 1960s, and builds on Chervel’s notion of school culture and Gruzinski’s discussion of connected histories.
Sur l'introduction des mathématiques modernes dans l'enseignement secondaire
buição discretas. Por outro lado é impossível arranjar uma sucessão de funçOes de distribuição contínuas que tenda uniformemente para uma função de distribuição discreta. Portanto uma teoria da entropia para o caso contínuo que venha a ser formulada terá de ser construída independentemente da teoria já existente da entropia no caso contínuo. É este um assunto a que esperamos poder dedicar um estudo futuro.