An Historical Exploration of the Concept of Average

The term “average” is a common expression often used wrongly. The purpose of this paper is to look at the average or its equivalent through history and to examine how it is translated in schools today. First we will investigate the word itself, its origins, and its different meanings. We will see how the concept of average evolved. Average can be seen as a philosophical concept of “general” but its earlier uses probably developed within science. This concept also has some sociological significance in developing industrial societies where standardisation was essential. The concept of average played a role in politics: the idea of confidence intervals supports the statistical tools underlying opinion polls. The concept of average has become important enough to be taught in schools but little is said about the various senses of the concept and its difficulties are not really addressed.