Admitting that one is "no good at mathematics" or "hates mathematics" is a common admission among student cohorts. For mature students who harbour a strong dislike of mathematics, these feelings can be exacerbated when they are faced with having to do an obligatory service mathematics module as part of a programme of study. For…

Professional identities may be viewed as narrative constructions in social situations but personal experiences and beliefs are fundamental influences in their development. Within Further Education colleges in England, mathematics teachers are typically expected to fulfil multiple roles, teaching a wide range of curricula and age groups, and this…

This pilot case study of two teachers and their learner groups from Adult and Community settings, investigates how numeracy teachers, working with adult learners in discrete numeracy classes, motivate and enable learners to build on their informal skills and apply new learning to their own real-life contexts. Teachers used a range of abstract and…

In researching how adult numeracy teachers actively motivate and enable learners to apply the numeracy skills they learn to their own real life practices, a case study of two adult numeracy teachers and their learner groups was undertaken. This paper compares the teachers' contrasting personal experiences of mathematics learning to consider how…

This action research project looks at what happened when a small group of adult numeracy teachers with widely different experiences of learning and teaching mathematics explored their own informal numeracy practices and undertook a series of collaborative mathematical tasks. Evidence from qualitative data collected during the enquiry suggests that…

This paper presents masons' professional practices, which are related to mathematics. It aims to contribute to the area of adult mathematics education and to enlarge knowledge about how mathematics is used at the workplace. Methodologically it was followed an ethnographic approach. The key informants of the study were four masons aged between 40…

Career-switchers who are returning to university for training as future elementary school teachers join an important and increasing group of adult learners of mathematics. These graduate preservice elementary teachers often place a high value on learning mathematics because of its prominent role in their prospective careers, but their learning…

The objective of this article is to investigate meaning and relevance in the context of adult developmental math learning and instruction. In this case study, at the Art Institute of San Francisco, 12 vocational instructors and four math learners are interviewed on their early and current math experiences. During the semi-structured interviews,…

Our discussion of social justice begins by embracing both "distribution" and "recognition" aspects of social relations (Vincent, 2003). The first aspect considers the way that goods, knowledge, skills, rights, etc. are distributed among social groups; the second aspect focuses on aspects of society structuring social encounters…

In this paper, we report on a series of algebra classes with a group of low-income, African American mothers of elementary-aged children who had limited and negative formal experiences with algebra. We drew from United States reform-oriented elementary mathematics curricular materials in the classes. The women initially arrived to the class out of…