This article synthesizes findings from an international virtual conference, funded by the United States National Science Foundation, focused on the home mathematics environment (HME). In light of inconsistencies and gaps in research investigating relations between the HME and children’s outcomes, the purpose of the conference was to discuss actionable steps and considerations for future work. The conference was composed of international researchers with a wide range of expertise and backgrounds. Presentations and discussions during the conference centered broadly on the need to better operationalize and measure the HME as a construct—focusing on issues related to child, family, and community factors, country and cultural factors, and the cognitive and affective characteristics of caregivers and children. Results of the conference and a subsequent writing workshop include a synthesis of core questions and key considerations for the field of research on the HME. Findings highlight the need for the field at large to use multi-method measurement approaches to capture nuances in the HME, and to do so with increased international and interdisciplinary collaboration, open science practices, and communication among scholars.

This research investigated the similarities and differences between countries in young children's early numeracy skills related to age, culture and gender. The participants were five-year-old children from Beijing (People's Republic of China), England and Finland. The rationale for the cross-cultural comparison originates from the research results with older children showing that Asian children outperform children from America or Europe, and from the lack of such information concerning younger children. The results showed that in all locations the older children performed better than the younger children. Cultural differences were found: young children from Beijing outperformed those from England and Finland in overall early numeracy performance, as well as in sub-tests for understanding of quantities and relations (i.e. relational skills) and counting skills. Finnish children had better scores than English children in the whole early numeracy scale and in the relational scale. The results are discussed in relation to culture, instruction in preschools and learning support at home, as well as the effects of language characteristics. The culture's appreciation of and approach to mathematics learning in early childhood is a plausible explanation for the cross-cultural differences found in this study.

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