A plenary address to an Australian conference on adult literacy focuses on cultural barriers to numeracy. Mathematics, and therefore numeracy, is considered as part of cultural knowledge. It is noted that over the last decade there has been a growing awareness of the cultural basis of mathematical knowledge and teachers can no longer assume that…

This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of research in mathematics learning. The shift to a more socio-cultural emphasis in mathematics education research is valid. The paper explores this point by examining challenges to the former research paradigm. These challenges include culturally-based mathematical knowledge and hidden values in…