Toward broader perspectives of young children’s mathematics: Recognizing and comparing Olivia’s beliefs and activity

Abstract

Little research exists on young children's beliefs about mathematics, and current research perspectives on early mathematical activity may overlook a great deal of young children's sophisticated mathematical thinking. We argue this is attributable, in part, to a need for a broader view of what mathematics is, including cultural practices that are mathematical. Thus, this study investigated a young child's mathematical activity and beliefs prior to school using a framework reflecting a view of mathematics as cultural activity. Through the case study of Olivia, aged 3 and 9 months, we found that her early beliefs about mathematics did not reflect her rich mathematical activity. Although Olivia engaged in a diverse range of mathematical activity (counting, measuring, designing, playing, locating, and explaining), what she believed mathematics to be was constrained to writing numbers and letters. To help young children perceive their own activity as mathematical, we argue there is a need: (a) for researchers, parents, teachers, and teacher educators to recognize the range of mathematics in children's everyday activities; (b) to explicitly tell children when their activity includes mathematics; and (c) for teacher educators to emphasize the cultural nature of early mathematical experiences and how to capitalize on these experiences.

Methodological Strategies to Listen to Children’s Voices: A Systematic Critical Review

“…Evidence from our review strongly suggests that interviews are the preferred-or at least the most common-strategy to listen to children's voices. The most prevalent types of interviews found in our review were semi-structured (Fekonja-Peklaj and Marjanovič-Umek, 2015;Koller and San Juan, 2015;Northard et al, 2015;Reunamo et al, 2015;O'Rourke, O'Farrelly, Booth and Doyle, 2017;Wernet and Nurnberger-Haag, 2015;Wu, 2015), and only two studies used structured interviews (Correia and Aguiar, 2017;Kotaman and Tekin, 2017). It is interesting to note that while interviews were the main strategy to listen to children's voices, we found a great variation in their use with regards to conditions, circumstances and material used to elicit children's views.…”

“…These observations lasted 3 months in Hong Kong and 42 days in Germany. On the other hand, in a case study reported by Wernet and Nurnberger-Haag's (2015) the authors observed a child aged 3 years and 9 months during two consecutive weeks at her home.…”

“…Once again, we found a variety of ways and places in which researchers carried out these observations. One of the most common places to carry out observations was the classroom, as evidenced by a range of studies which followed this approach (Cheng Pui-Wah et al, 2015;Fekonja-Peklaj and Marjanovič-Umek, 2015;McEvilly, 2015;Northard et al, 2015;Reunamo et al, 2015;Wu, 2015), while only in one study the observations were carried out in outdoor spaces (Merewether, 2015) and another where the researchers observed children at home (Wernet and Nurnberger-Haag, 2015). Two studies combined observations with other methods, such as interviews (Wu, 2015) and child evaluations (Reunamo et al, 2015), although in the latter, there was no explanation about the way in which the evaluation took place.…”

Voices of young children aged 3–7 years in educational research: an international systematic literature review

“…Indeed, there were examples in which the approach appeared to have been designed for power differentials, e.g., by seating the child opposite the researcher in an environment other than their own educational environment (e.g., Aykol 2020), and we did not find evidence of discussion with participants around the degree of power sharing within the studies (Lundy and McEvoy, 2009). In other instances, researchers relied on observations to obtain spontaneous children's ideas about a particular topic (e.g., Fekonja-Peklaj and Marjanovič-Umek 2015; Reunamo et al 2015;Sisson, Whitington, and Shin 2020;Wernet and, Nurnberger-Haag 2015). Arguably, the information obtained through this medium does not necessarily reflect children's perspectives, but rather it reflects the interpretative process of what researchers observe (Spradley 2016).…”

What counts in number books? A content-domain specific typology to evaluate children’s books for mathematics

“…In accurate counting book types, who is portrayed as doing simple or more complex mathematics? This typology could provide a conceptual tool for analyzing the children's books in relation to Critical Theory (e.g., Taylor et al, 2009) or other theoretical approaches that address identity or other perspectives on social justice to ensure all learners meet their potential and see themselves as doers of mathematics (Wernet & Nurnberger-Haag, 2015).…”