Culture and Cognitive Development

Researchers examining children's mathematics acquisition are now questioning the belief that children learn mathematics principally through formalized, in-school mathematics education. There is increasing evidence that children gain mathematical understanding through their participation in out-of-school cultural practices and that their mathematics only occasionally resembles what they learn in the classroom. Culture and Cognitive Development presents the latest research by Dr. Geoffrey Saxe on this issue. In examinations of the mathematical understandings of child candy sellers in an urban center in northeastern Brazil, Dr. Saxe finds sharp contrasts between mathematics as practiced in school and in real-world settings. In this unique research project he presents a penetrating conceptual treatment of the interplay between culture and cognitive development, filling a void in current research literature. Subjects examined include: the interplay between sociocultural and cognitive developmental processes the differences between math knowledge learned in and out of the classroom the ways math learning in the classroom is modified by children's out-of-school mathematics and, correspondingly, how practical out-of-school mathematics use is modified by formal education

Saxe, Geoffrey B.

Contents: Part I: Culture and Cognition: A Method of Study. Culture and Cognitive Development. A Research Approach. Part II: Component 1: Emergent Mathematical Goals. Parameter 1: The Structure of the Candy-selling Practice. Parameters 2 and 3: Social Interactions and Practice-linked Artifacts and Conventions -- A Focus on the Sell Phase. Parameters 2 and 3: Social Interactions and Practice-linked Artifacts and Conventions -- A Focus on the Purchase Phase. Parameter 4: Sellers' Emergent Mathematical Goals and Their Prior Understandings. Emergent Mathematical Goals of the Practice: A Summary and Discussion of the First Analytic Component Applied to the Candy-selling Practice. Part III: Component 2: Form-Function Shifts in Candy Sellers' Mathematics. The Influence of Practice Participation on Sellers' Mathematics. The Development of Sellers' Mathematics. Form-function Shift in Sellers' Mathematics: Links Between Components 1 and 2. Part IV: Component 3: The Interplay Between Learning in and out of School. Some Contrasts Between Mathematics of the School and of the Candy-selling Practice. The Influence of Schooling on Sellers' Mathematics. The Influence of Selling Experience on Learning Mathematics in School. Appropriation and Specialization in the Practice. Part V: Culture and Cognitive Development. Epilogue. Appendices: Recruitment of Sellers. Background Information on Sellers and Their Practice. Extended Description of Tasks.