Currently, every person is required to possess at least three basic skills, namely reading, writing, and counting. However, before the nineteenth century, mathematics was not as prioritized as the first two types of literacy. Students learned the first two skills at the age of eight or nine while they started to learn how to count four to six years later (Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick, 2003). That is because students were considered mature enough to synthesize logical thinking at that age and people had not started to realize the importance of mathematics in daily basis.

Male and female students started to experience different treatments to improve their mathematical literacy since this very early period. According to Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick (2003), only males studied mathematics in the classroom while females probably learned basic counting and operations in their home. It can be either a cause or a result that male superiority in mathematics was not only believed for many years but also discrepancies in the mathematical performances between both genders have been revealed by many research (Fennema, 1979). Unfortunately, although today both genders have an equal chance in pursuing education, this gap continues in many countries according to OECD.

The economy problems before 1800 were not as complicated as today. Therefore, the mathematical topics were adjusted based on those conditions (Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick, 2003). More advanced mathematics such as algebra, geometry, and trigonometry were learned only by people pursuing a career related to surveying, navigation, and gunnery (Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick, 2003). On the other hand, elite boys trained in the Latin track barely studied Arithmetic at all (Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick, 2003). It indicates that only practitioners in a field that had a strong connection with a specific topic learned the deep levels of that mathematical topic.

In terms of pedagogy, mathematics was taught with some minimal sentences as a collection of rules to memorize (Stanic, George, and Kilpatrick, 2003). Mathematics education in this era had minimal real-world contexts, integration within mathematical subjects, and connection with other fields which are the primary concern of literacy.