Mapping the terrain of social practice perspectives of numeracy

A numeracy as social practice perspective focuses on what people do with numeracy through social interactions in particular contexts, rather than on people’s performance of mathematical skills in isolation of context. Moreover, this perspective highlights that numeracy activity must be understood in relation to the social, cultural, historical and political contexts in which it takes place. In this chapter, we map four key theoretical influences on this perspective: situative learning, cultural historical activity theory, literacy as social practice, and ethnomathematics.