Comparison of Contents Design in Mathematical Inquiry in High School Textbooks

This chapter proposes five elements for analysis of inquiry contents in high school mathematics textbooks, namely situation expression, problem statement, partnership, activity type, and context interaction; Their sub-indexes are described in detail to construct an analytical framework for the inquiry contents in high school mathematics textbooks. Based on the framework, the chapter presents an analysis of seven high school textbooks from China, Germany, Japan, UK, USA, France, and Singapore, and compares their characteristics of design in the mathematical inquiry. The result suggests that the German textbooks (DE-EDM) focus on the creation of abundant real situations and the design of the activities for peer cooperation; the textbooks published by the People’s Education Press of China (Version A, CN-PEP) emphasize the design of open-ended problems and usually express problems with interrogative sentences; the textbooks by Sukan Shuppan Publishing Company, J apan (JP-SKS) offer plenty of mathematical reading materials for students; the UK textbooks (UK-SMP) emphasize on the design of teamwork cooperation situations; the US textbooks (US-PHM) pay attention to the display of the role of the inquiry column in the textbooks as well as the application and development of knowledge in the inquiry; the French textbooks (FR-EDB) pay special attention to students’ inquiry into information technology and the application of information technology in mathematics; and Singapore’s textbooks (SG-PPE) attach importance to the cultivating of students’ capacity of speculation and explanation.