On the Influence of Cognitive Theories in the Teaching of Calculus in Austrian Secondary Schools at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

In Austria, in the first decade of the 20th century, a reform in school curricula gave the opportunity to introduce the first elements of differential and integral calculus in the secondary school teaching. In some Italian speaking secondary schools of Trieste, a city which at that time belonged to the Habsburg Empire, these subjects were introduced in the teaching programmes. At the end of the First World War Trieste was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. In our research we examine an example of the didactic methodologies used in Trieste before the First World War to teach these subjects and describe briefly the situation which occurred there in the period of transition from the regulations of the Habsburg Empire to those of the Kingdom of Italy.