O ensino de curvas cônicas sistematizado em livros didáticos de matemática para o curso secundário nas décadas de 1930 e 1940

Abstract

This master’s thesis is the result of a research developed in the Postgraduate Program in Mathematics Education at Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora and inserted in a larger Project that aims to build representations about the schooling process of Analytical Geometry in secondary and higher education in Brazil. More specifically, this research investigates, within the scope of Analytical Geometry, conic curves from a perspective of the history of teaching this content. The theoreticalmethodological contribution of the study is based on Cultural History, mobilizing the notion of representation for the construction of historical analysis. To prepare these analyzes and in order to problematize the importance of studying conics in high school today, mathematics textbooks from the 1930s and 1940s are taken as the main source. As results obtained through the analysis of textbooks, it is noted tha the conics approach does not emphasize reflective Properties and that exercises on this topic were direct and scarce. Furthermore, during the research process, it was noticed that, in the 1930s, there were few copies of textbooks dedicated to teaching Mathematics. Through the teaching of conics in contemporary Brazilian high school curricula, making a contribution to this topic through the vídeo “Why are satellite dishes parabolic?” which was developed for the activities of the educational product.