Chapter 3: The Economic Activity and Mathematics Learning Project

This project took place between 2011 and 2013 in Bristol, in the United Kingdom. The main aim of the project was to explore the mathematical thinking and learning that children experience out of school. This was motivated by a combination of factors. On the one hand, we drew on research in education telling us that there is limited understanding of the kinds of experience that children are drawing on in the mathematics classroom, or of how mathematics teachers can best make use of children's out-of-school experience in their teaching. On the other hand, we drew on research in economic psychology which told us there was useful work to be done in research children's economic activity and learning from their own point of view. The literature on out-of-school mathematics learning has been thoroughly covered in Chapter 2, but research on children's economic activity warrants some attention here.