5. Mathematics Embedded in Community-Based Practices

Abstract

Low-income settlements with diverse income-generating work practices dispersed among households create opportunities and affordances for learning, which have mathematical elements embedded in them. Drawing from the community’s rich knowledge resource (funds of knowledge), children from the neighbourhood learn to assimilate knowledge, competence, and skills. Out-of-school mathematical knowledge equips them to handle complex situations calling for quick decision-making and optimising resources and profits. Deals are negotiated following several variables, and cases of unjust wages and payments are aplenty. This chapter argues that such backdrops could form landscapes of investigation, and that the handling of or limited access to diverse goods—as well as the optimising of resources and decision-making processes—create different possibilities for not just dealing with mathematical knowledge but also questioning unfair work deals and examining social injustice. Such landscapes of investigation provide direction beyond the exercise paradigm, towards an enabling pattern of critical communication.