New Math

Zelbo, Sian. "New Math as a Popular Culture Phenomenon (1960 to 1980): The Shaping of Societal Knowledge and Beliefs about the Era's Curriculum Reforms." History of Education Quarterly 66, no. 2 (forthcoming, May 2026).

The American New Math reform movement emerged in the 1950s as part of a broader international effort to modernize mathematics education. This study analyzes 191 popular cultural artifacts referencing New Math and shows that broader cultural themes of the post-war era, including the urgent need and potential of technological progress, align with widespread beliefs about New Math. The analysis reveals that the public knew little about the reforms and regarded New Math as a mysterious, powerful new technology that would empower the next generation. The study suggests that the public’s perceptions of New Math, and likely other educational reforms, are shaped in a social dialogue among producers and consumers of culture as much as by the content of those reforms.

Zelbo, Sian. “Ideology and Public Opposition to the New Math Reform Movement in the United States (1960 to 1980).” Analecta: Studies and Materials for the History of Science. Forthcoming 2025.

This study explores public opposition to the American New Math reform movement through an analysis of readers’ letters published in major American newspapers from 1960 to 1980. The findings identify key themes in the public debate about New Math curriculum, revealing that opposition extended beyond specific pedagogical criticisms to reflect broader ideological dispositions, including distrust of academic elites and nostalgia for traditional notions of authority. The study demonstrates that these ideological themes in letters critical of New Math aligned with central messaging of the rising conservative movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This investigation of ideology in the public response to New Math suggests that educational reforms, apart from their merits, may fail to gain lasting public support when they conflict with dominant cultural and political values.