At home with mathematics: Meanings and uses among families

Everyday mathematics research has examined the activities of buyers (Lave, 1988) and sellers in markets (Nunes, Schliemann, & Carraher, 1993; Saxe, 1990); it has examined the practices of both high and lower status occupational work (e.g. Hall & Stevens, 1995; Scribner, 1985; Stevens & Hall, 1998), and it has examined the mathematics that is embedded in competitive play (Nasir, 2000) but the family as locus of mathematical activity is understudied. The three projects represented in this symposium focus on mathematical practices in the context of families. The first project takes an activity focus, examining mathematical practices in the context of a consequential context of family activity-money and its uses. The second project takes a topical focus, describing a wide range of practices in families that are seen as mathematical. The third paper focuses on a particular cultural group, attending to the meanings and uses of both informal and schooled mathematics in the family context. Together the papers provide a new perspective on qualities of mathematical practice outside of school and its actual, and potential, relations to school mathematics.