Building stone walls

Building stone walls, a highly systematised practice in two indigenous communities in northern Philippines, is investigated as a social practice. The case study shows how practitioners have developed competences in dealing with the materials used in the construction, arguing that these materials and competences assume symbolic meanings, and embody shared aspirations between stone wallers and the larger community. Steps in stone walling may be considered as numeracy events, comprising numeracy practices. Viewing stone walling as a social practice contributes to the theorising of numeracy as knowledge embedded in cultural practice, allowing possibilities for developing culturally relevant mathematics and numeracy lessons.