Cultural Development of Mathematical Ideas : Papua New Guinea Studies (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)

Saxe, Geoffrey B.

Cambridge University Press（2014/03発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 400 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781107685697
• DDC分類 155.849912

Full Description

Drawing upon field studies conducted in 1978, 1980 and 2001 with the Oksapmin, a remote Papua New Guinea group, Geoffrey B. Saxe traces the emergence of new forms of numerical representations and ideas in the social history of the community. In traditional life, the Oksapmin used a counting system that makes use of twenty-seven parts of the body; there is no evidence that the group used arithmetic in prehistory. As practices of economic exchange and schooling have shifted, children and adults unwittingly reproduced and altered the system in order to solve new kinds of numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that has led to new forms of collective representations in the community. While Dr Saxe's focus is on the Oksapmin, the insights and general framework he provides are useful for understanding shifting representational forms and emerging cognitive functions in any human community.

Contents

Introduction; Part I. The Origins of Number-Enduring Questions: 1. Culture-cognition relations; 2. Cultural forms of number representation used in Oksapmin communities; Part II. Economic Exchange: 3. Collective practices of economic exchange: a brief social history; 4. Reproduction and alteration of numerical representations; 5. Reproduction and alteration in currency token representations; 6. Representational forms, functions, collective practices, and fu: a microcosm; Part III. Schooling: 7. A brief history: collective practices of schooling in Oksapmin; 8. Unschooled children's developing uses of the body system; 9. Children's adaptations of the body system in school in 1980: an unintended consequence of postcolonial schooling; 10. About twenty years later: schooling and number; 11. Teachers and students as (unintentional) agents of change; Part IV. Towards an Integrated Treatment of Socio-Historical and Cognitive Developmental Processes: 12. What develops? A focus on form-function relations; 13. How do quantification practices develop?; 14. Why do form-function relations shift?; Epilogue.