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Synopsis
The crisis around teaching and learning of mathematics and its use in everyday life and work relate to a number of issues. These include: The doubtful transferability of school maths to real life contexts, the declining participation in A level and higher education maths courses, the apparent exclusion of some groups, such as women and the aversion of many people to maths. This book addresses these issues by considering a number of key problems in maths education and numeracy:
•differences among social groups, especially those related to gender and social class
•the inseparability of cognition and emotion in mathematical activity
•the understanding of maths anxiety in traditional psychological, psychoanalytical and feminist theories
•how adults' numerate thinking and performance must be understood in context.
The author's findings have practical applications in education and training, such as clarifying problems of the transfer of learning, and of countering maths anxiety.
Booknews
Revising from his doctoral dissertation in education for the University of London (no date noted), Evans, offers a theoretical and empirical study of numeracy in adults and its implications for teaching mathematics. He looks at mathematics as The Difficult Subject, the context of mathematical thinking, performance and social difference, affect and mathematics anxiety, mathematical affect as emotion, and developing a complementary qualitative methodology. He also shares the stories of seven learners and draws conclusions about such matters as mathematical thinking and performance in school and everyday life, gender and other social differences, and adult-friendly contexts for learning. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)