Chapter 2: (HOW) AM I Doing Mathematics?

People in several walks of life perform mathematical activities out of school, at home, and at work. However, those who perform these activities usually do not make the mathematics used in their everyday activities or at their workplaces explicit. Ethnomathematics researchers have called for theoretical and empirical research to further investigate the nature of mathematical knowledge used in everyday situations and to examine how it is similar to and different from mathematics learned in school. I drew upon the research fields of ethnomathematics and its subset workplace mathematics, to investigate the workplace mathematical activities of a group of bus conductors in Chennai, India. In this report, the focus is on Mr. Muthu, a bus conductor employed by the government agency, Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC). I provide an overview of Muthu’s workplace mathematical activities; situate his workplace mathematical activities in the broader context of “bus conducting”; and describe his views of mathematics and its learning and discuss if and how his views (of mathematics) influenced his perceptions of mathematics used at this workplace.