Cultural development of mathematical ideas
Subtitle: Papua New Guinea studies
By: Geoffrey B. Saxe ; with Indigo Esmonde
Contributors: Esmonde, Indigo
Series: Learning in doing
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780521761666
Subjects: Case studies; Cognition and culture; Constructivism (Education); Number concept; PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology; Social change
Description: "The book presents a general framework for the analysis of culture-cognition relations that makes use of field studies with a remote Papua New Guinea culture group, the Oksapmin, as an illustrative case"--

"Drawing upon field studies conducted in 1978, 1980, and 2001 with a remote Papua New Guinea group, the Oksapmin, Geoffrey Saxe traces the emergence of new forms of numerical representations and ideas in the social history of the community. In traditional life, the Oksapmin used a 27-body-part counting system, and there is no evidence that Oksapmin used arithmetic in prehistory. With shifting practices of economic exchange and schooling, children and adults unwittingly reproduce and alter the system as they solve new kinds of numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that leads to new forms of collective representations in the community. While Saxe,Ŵs focus is on the Oksapmin, the insights and general framework he provides are useful for understanding shifting representational forms and emerging cognitive functions in any human community"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. The Origins of Number-Enduring Questions: 1. Culture-cognition relations; 2. Cultural forms of number representation used in Oksapmin communities; Part II. Economic Exchange: 3. Collective practices of economic exchange: a brief social history; 4. Reproduction and alteration of numerical representations; 5. Reproduction and alteration in currency token representations; 6. Representational forms, functions, collective practices, and fu: a microcosm; Part III. Schooling: 7. A brief history: collective practices of schooling in Oksapmin; 8. Unschooled children's developing uses of the body system; 9. Children's adaptations of the body system in school in 1980: an unintended consequence of post-colonial schooling; 10. About twenty years later: schooling and number; 11. Teachers and students as (unintentional) agents of change; Part IV. Towards an Integrated Treatment of Socio-Historical and Cognitive Developmental Processes: 12. What develops? A focus on form-function relations; 13. How do quantification practices develop?; 14. Why do form-function relations shift?; Epilogue.