Abstract

CORREA, Jane  and  MACLEAN, Morag. Once upon a time ... a villain called mathematics: an intercultural study of the relative difficulty attributed to mathematics. Psicol. Reflex. Crit. [online]. 1999, vol.12, n.1, pp. 173-194. ISSN 0102-7972.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79721999000100012.

Students' ideas of the relative difficulty attributed to Mathematics as compared to other school subjects were examined by asking middle school Brazilian and English pupils to indicate the degree of difficulty of five school disciplines (Mathematics, Science, Portuguese/English, Geography and History) on a five-point scale ranging from very easy to very difficult. Students' evaluations were influenced by the nature of each subject area in accordance with the way teaching was organised across the school years for each culture.

Keywords : Mathematics education; adolescents; intercultural comparison.