There seems to be a public consensus that the content of Korean mathematics textbooks is extensive and of a high level of difficulty. However, such judgment is the result of a generalization based on individual experience or on the results from comparisons of the international levels of achievement. Therefore, a more objective and stricter approach to the determination of the quantity and level of difficulty of mathematics content is necessary. For this p따pose, this study has compared the content of Koreas 6th and 7th junior high school curriculums, the Korean mathematics textbooks(more strictly speaking, the 7th mathematics curriculum) to those of the United States, which has a considerable influence on the making of Korean mathematics textbooks.
First of all, a comparison of Koreas 6th and 7th junior high school mathematics curriculums showed a slight reduction in the total quantity of content, as more content was deleted than was added in the 7th curriculum.
Meanwhile, the comparison of the United States junior high school mathematics curriculum to Koreas 7th curriculum showed that the 7th grade content in the United States was much broader, encompassing content which in Korea ranged from the 2nd grade of elementary school to the 2nd year of junior high school. Therefore, on the surface, it may appear that the overall level of content in the American mathematics textbook is lower than that of the Korean. However, there are several cases, such as statistics and probability, where certain content was more difficult and introduced at an earlier grade in the United States than in Korea. In fact, it can be said that Korea students tend to find content of the mathematics textbooks to be harder than they actually era because they are delivered as a mere aggregate of algorithms, with little consideration to its application in their everyday lives. In this respect, there is much room for improvement on the mathematics textbooks of Korea.