The Rise and Breakthrough of the International Modern Mathematics/New Math Movement in the 1950s

The origins of modern mathematics in continental Europe and New Math in the United States can be situated in the early 1950s, and although both educational reform movements share common sources and motives (and are often seen as one and the same movement), they initially developed independently of each other. In this article, we examine the early roots of these movements: the context, actors, and motives. In Europe, the debates were mainly related to scientific innovations, such as Bourbaki’s work in pure mathematics and that of Piaget in developmental psychology. The US movement was more strongly rooted in socio-political and economic motives, such as the demand for mathematically skilled labor, and was government-driven early on. In 1959, key European and American reformers met for the first time at a seminar in Royaumont. This seminal event marked the beginning of the worldwide spread of modern mathematics/New Math.