Reflections on Mathematical Literacy

Today’s widespread concern with mathematical literacy indicates the educators’ commitment to the old principle, formulated more than three decades ago by Hans Freudenthal: “The child should be able to use in society what [he or she] has learned at school.

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Reflections on Mathematical Literacy What’s New, Why Should We Care, and What Can We Do About It? Anna Sfard Abstract Today’s widespread concern with mathematical literacy indicates the educators’ commitment to the old principle, formulated more than three decades ago by Hans Freudenthal: “The child should be able to use in society what [he or she] has learned at school.” As obvious and uncontestable as this maxim seems to be, the question of how the term mathematical literacy should be interpreted and implemented has been an object of debates and disagreements. One position on this issue has been presented by Paul Goldenberg in the preceding chapter. With Paul’s critical statement serving as a point of departure, the authors of this chapter tackle such questions as What do we have in mind while talking about mathematical literacy? Should we give in to the utilitarian approach to school mathematics that seems to transpire from this latter term, whatever its interpretation? And even if we agree that the students’ ability to broadly apply mathematics should be fostered, will we ever be able to overcome the inherent situatedness of learning? How? Coming from a diverse groups of writers—two researchers in mathematics education, a psychologist, a mathematician, and a policy maker—the five attempts at answering these questions may sounds too diverse to end up in agreement. Still, they certainly make for an interesting, important, and ultimately useful conversation.

Keywords Literacy · Mathematical literacy · (Formal) mathematical competency · Transfer · Situatedness of learning · Mathematical discourse

With contributions by Abraham Arcavi, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rechovot, Israel Ron Livné, Mathematics Institute, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Iddo Gal, Ph.D., Department of Human Services, The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel Hannah Perl, Israel Ministry of Education, Jerusalem, Israel A. Sfard (B) Faculty of Education, The University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel e-mail: [email protected] M.N. Fried, T. Dreyfus (eds.), Mathematics & Mathematics Education: Searching for Common Ground, Advances in Mathematics Education, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7473-5_10, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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Introduction These days, the word literacy is in everybody’s mouth. Either alone or preceded by a noun or adjective—computer, technological, digital or mathematical—it features prominently in educational discourse and appears with increasing frequency in written and electronic media. And yet, as is often the case with buzzwords, this “next big thing” of the educational parlance often seems to be bringing more confusion than enlightenment. As observed by Paul Goldenberg in the preceding chapter, the term mathematical literacy is capable of baffling even the almighty Google. Clarifying the meaning of the expression is one of the goals of the present chapter, in which two researchers in mathematics education (Arcavi and Sfard), a mathematician (Livné), an applied psyc

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