Americans Reject Arabic Numerals Unknowingly

In a 2019 CivicScience poll of 3,624 Americans, 56% said schools should not teach Arabic numerals, while 29% supported teaching them and 15% had no opinion. The survey deliberately provided no definition because the company wanted to expose prejudice among respondents who did not understand the term. Arabic numerals are the familiar digits 0 through 9 that American schools already teach and people use throughout everyday life and mathematics.

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