Timeline of mathematics education in England and the USA

by Nicky Rushton and Dominika Majewska

Timeline showing mathematics education journey

Take an interactive journey through time with Cambridge University Press and Assessment's timeline of mathematical events in England and the USA. View timeline full screen

Introduction

The history of education is incredibly rich and varies between countries. Although there may be similar movements or events that have occurred across countries, there will usually be crucial differences that make each nation’s education journey distinct. We wanted to present events that have occurred in mathematics education in a visual way to allow us to compare what happened in different countries. Timelines can support comprehension and offer a pictorial way of organising large amounts of information in a chronological order.(1)

What does the timeline show?

This timeline shows the journey that mathematics education has gone through in England and the United States of America (USA). We chose to compare the US and England because we wanted to compare whether there are any key similarities and differences between the journeys that mathematics education had undergone in England and in the US. The US has a highly decentralised education system, meaning that education is the responsibility of individual states rather than the federal government. In contrast, England has a highly centralised education system where the government is responsible for many aspects of education. Additionally, there is no mandated mathematics curriculum for the whole of the US although many states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (*), whereas in England there is a national curriculum. (**)

Although we focus on mathematics education, we also include general educational events if they are important for mathematics education too.

The timeline attempts to offer historical perspectives on various themes in the history of mathematics education, including theoretical debates, initiatives, standards, organisations, and strategies, as well as key publications and reviews. The starting date for the two countries differs as they both begin with a key event in that country. The England timeline starts from 1861, with the investigation of how schooling should be provided to all children in England. The US timeline starts nearly a century earlier, in 1788, with the publication of a set of teaching protocols for arithmetic. The two timelines detail major changes in mathematics education since those respective dates, including the introduction of, and changes to, curricula/standards (***) and changes to major qualifications.

View text version of timeline

Using the timeline

The timeline has many functions, which are useful for making comparisons between the countries. The spanner icon in the bottom right-hand corner allows to change the way in which the timeline is viewed. The view type button presents the timelines in different ways:

  • the standard view shows the category of event, its icon and the start of the description of the event,
  • the category bands view shows each country (theme) on its own timeline,
  • the coloured stories view is similar to the standard view, but events are coloured by theme (country), and
  • the duration view colours the boxes by theme (country) and shows how long an event occurred for (although we tended to include the year an event started mostly, so it may not be the most useful view type).

Key for mathematics education timelines

Assessments and tests icon
Assessments and tests
Bodies, organisations, councils, projects and strategies icon
Bodies, organisations, councils, projects and strategies
Curriculum icon
Curriculum
General events, initiatives and movements icon
General events, initiatives and movements
Mathematics specific icon
Mathematics specific
Major reports, reviews, books, white papers and acts icon
Major reports, reviews, books, white papers and acts
State specific information (US only) icon
State specific information (US only)

Video transcript

Dominika Majewska: [00:00:02] Hello and welcome.

[00:00:04] This video will present timelines showing the journey that maths education in England and the USA has gone through over time.

[00:00:11] In this video we will explain what the timelines are and how to use them.

[00:00:15] We conduct work where we compare various aspects of education such as countries, curricular assessment systems and different ways of teaching.

[00:00:22] We thought it would be interesting to present events and various changes that have occurred in maths education visually as it makes comparisons easier.

[00:00:31] We created the timelines on a website called TikiToki which has great functionality that we will introduce in this video.

[00:00:38] We would like to thank Jackie White who has helped us put the timelines together.

[00:00:42] Now I'm going to hand over to Nicky, who will talk about how the timelines work and what you can do with them.

Nicky Rushton: [00:00:50] When you first see the timeline, it's in the standard view and starts at the earliest event.

[00:00:54] The blue and purple dots at the bottom of the screen show you the years when events happen.

[00:00:59] When you click on a year, you'll be taken to the events that happened.

[00:01:02] Then you can change the timeline's appearance.

[00:01:07] When you click on the spanner icon on the bottom right hand corner of the screen, it will open various functionality options.

[00:01:14] The Search tab allows you to search for specific keywords or dates.

[00:01:22] This will highlight events with the word or the date that you searched for.

[00:01:30] The Categories tab allows you to filter by category, in this case by country.

[00:01:35] So if you click on England, for instance, it will show you only the events that have occurred in England.

[00:01:44] The View Type may be one of the most useful ones for direct comparisons between the two countries, as it presents the timelines in different ways.

[00:01:52] The Category Bands option splits the events into separate timelines, with England's timelines of events at the top and the USA shown below.

[00:02:01] This makes it easier to see what happened in both countries during specific times.

[00:02:07] The Coloured Stories tab makes events that happened in England in one colour, purple, and those that occurred in the USA a different colour, blue.

[00:02:17] The Duration tab allows you to see how long events lasted.

[00:02:21] As most of the events included here do not include their duration, only the year in which they happened, this view is not particularly useful.

[00:02:30] The Spacing tab allows you to change the way that events are presented in rows.

[00:02:34] For instance, by clicking on top to bottom three rows, the events are now shown in three separate rows.

[00:02:41] Clicking on five rows shows the events in five separate rows.

[00:02:46] Please note that in some of the view types, there's a limit on the number of views lines that they can show.

[00:02:56] Finally, in the Tools box we have the Zoom tab.

[00:03:01] This allows you to zoom in or out on events.

[00:03:04] Zooming out either using the minus button or by clicking on the bars on the left hand side of the screen allows you to see more events on the page.

[00:03:12] While zooming in using either the plus button or by clicking on the bars on the right hand side of the screen shows fewer events, but you can see more details for each event.

[00:03:23] Now I'm going to hand over to Dominika, who's going to talk to you about the event boxes themselves.

Dominika Majewska: [00:03:33] An events box contains the title or what the event is probably about, and depending on the chosen view type and spacing, they also show the year that the event happened in, which country it applies to, and some information about this event.

[00:03:48] When you click on the arrow button, it will display all information about that event.

[00:03:55] When you click on an event, you can also move to the previous event or to the next event by using the small arrows at the bottom of the events box.

[00:04:08] You will also notice that events have icons.

[00:04:14] These icons correspond to the theme of the event.

[00:04:17] Each icon's background is different to make recognition of the theme easier.

[00:04:22] For instance, the theme Assessments and Tests is represented by a scroll with one star on a green background, like this one here.

[00:04:30] There are seven themes that events can belong to.

[00:04:36] Assessments and Tests which I have just demonstrated, Bodies, organisations, councils, projects and strategies represented by an icon on a yellow background like this one here.

[00:04:48] We also have general events, initiatives and movements represented by a dark turquoise background such as the one here.

[00:05:04] We have major reports, reviews, white papers and acts shown by a light pink icon like this one here.

[00:05:13] In addition to this we have mathematics specific movements which are shown on a dark blue icon like this one here.

[00:05:32] State specific information which is for USA events only is shown on a red icon like this one here.

[00:05:42] And we also have curriculum which is shown by pictures representing various subjects compiled together on a blue background like this one here.

[00:06:02] To filter by the theme you are interested in, click on an event with that theme and then click on the theme it has been tagged with, which is just below the year here.

[00:06:17] This will bring up the search tab in the bottom right hand corner with the theme entered in the text box as you can see.

[00:06:22] On the timeline, it will highlight the other events that have been tagged with the same theme and grey out any other events that do not belong to that theme.

[00:06:40] Thanks for watching.

[00:06:41] We hope this demonstration has shown you how to use the timelines and that they will be useful for you whether you are conducting research, teaching or are simply interested in maths education.

Return to top

The events can be zoomed in, which shows fewer events, or zoomed out to show more events, although this makes them overlap, so you cannot see all events . Each event (box) shows the event title and in some views it also shows the start of the description of the event, the country it applies to or the theme that it belongs to. For short entries, all of this information may be visible. To see the full description of the event, click on ‘more’. In the standard and coloured stories views, there is a right arrow to expand a box for the full description of the event, and in the category bands view, there is a box labelled ‘more’ and a right arrow. There is nothing in the duration view to show that more information is available, but clicking anywhere on a box will bring up the full description of the event. The expanded events are identical in all the views. You can read the description of the event and see the theme that it belongs to in the left-hand corner. On this timeline, the two countries are represented by two different colours: purple (England) and blue (USA), but the specific presentation depends on the view type. In standard view, each country is presented at the very top of the box. In category bands view, England has an individual purple timeline across the top of the screen and the USA has its individual blue timeline underneath. In coloured stories view, the boxes are coloured in completely to represent either England or the US. The duration view has smaller coloured boxes, similar to the presentation in the coloured stories view, but events that last a long time have a long coloured line instead of a box. To see easily whether events happened in England or the USA, select either the category bands view so that each country appears on its own timeline, or the standard view, which labels each box with the relevant country at the top. You can also move from one event to another by clicking the arrows at the bottom of the box.

Notes and References

*↩ The common core state standards are a set of learning goals stating what students should know by the end of each grade from Kindergarten to grade 12 (5-18 year-olds).

**↩ The national curriculum lists the content to be taught in all subjects for key stages 1 to 4 (5-16 year-olds).

***↩ Please note that there is a difference between England and the USA in the terminology used to describe documents that contain the subject content to be taught. In England, these documents are referred to as curricula and in the USA they are known as standards.

1↩ Moline, S. (1995). I see what you mean: Children at work with visual information. Stenhouse Publishers.

Acronyms

View acronyms and definitions used in the timelines.

References List

View references list for the mathematics education timelines.

Feedback

If you have any questions or comments about the timelines (e.g., you have additional events that you think could be added), please e-mail ResearchDivision@cambridge.org with the subject line 'Timelines'.

Telling the story of maths education in England and the United States

In this blog we explore the main events and influences in mathematics education in the two countries. Read more

Related research

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following for their time, input and contribution to this work:

  • Alison Mitchell, Web Developer
  • Jackie White, Divisional Administrator
  • Gill Elliott, Acting Director, ARD Research Division
  • Stuart Shaw, Honorary Professor, Institute of Education, UCL
  • Zalman Usiskin, Professor Emeritus of (Mathematics) Education, University of Chicago
  • Daniel Chazan, Jean, Jeffrey, and David Mullan Professor of Teacher Education, University of Maryland
  • Jackie Greatorex (for her contribution and for reviewing the timelines)
  • Tiki Toki (for allowing us to host the timelines)