Context influences children’s performance in mathematics. This was illustrated in Carraher and colleagues’ (1985) classic study of Brazilian street vendors. Describe the method and results of Carraher and colleages’ study, and discuss how the results support the claim that children’s mathematical problem-solving performance depends on context.
What will be an ideal response?
Brazilian children ages nine to fifteen, who worked as street vendors, were presented with arithmetic problems in one of three conditions: (1) in the context of the transactions that would occur at their vendor stand, (2) in the context of transactions that would occur at other types of vendor stands, and (3) in a context-free condition. Children performed very well on arithmetic problems that involved transactions that would occur at their vendor stand, and they also performed reasonably well on problems in the other sales context. However, children solved fewer than half of the context-free arithmetic problems correctly. Thus, children’s performance on arithmetic problems depended on the context in which the problems were presented.
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