The rise of the modern mathematics/New Maths movement in continental Europe and the US

The roots 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 shared common sources and motives (and are sometimes seen as one and the same movement), they initially developed independently of each other. We explore how and why both movements emerged in Europe and in the US. The revision of secondary school curricula in the light of a modernisation of the teaching of mathematics and science was a concern on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, the debates were mainly related to scientific innovations, such as Bourbaki's work in pure mathematics and that of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in developmental psychology. The US movement was more strongly rooted in socio-political and economic motives, such as the demand for mathematically skilled labour, and was government-driven early on.