Numeracy – eine unterschätzte Domäne der Grundbildung?

In this article, terms and the state of research on adult numeracy are compiled in a systematic way. The findings and theories are selected according to their relation to the German-language discourse of adult education and at the same time embedded in a historical context as well as in international discourse. Many recent findings confirm Jean Lave’s approach in that numeracy differs from school mathematics in the high relevance of rules of thumb and estimates as well as in less formal procedures. Numeracy is therefore often not understood as mathematics and remains rather invisible. Numeracy practices are based on social power relations. The assertion of one’s own interests is also based on numeracy—for example in financial literacy, in the health system or in the use of statistical data. Last but not least, numeracy skills and practices go hand in hand with better living conditions.

Numeracy practices are always dependent on the social context in which they emerge. These contexts, however, are unstable because of a range of technological and socio-political changes. How does this instability affect people’s agency in the world? After reviewing key approaches to numeracy practices research, we distil key findings from recent numeracy studies. We introduce the concept of the numerate environment to examine the context in which opportunities, supports and demands present themselves for people’s numeracy development, explaining how cultural-historical activity theory can be used to analyse the effects of changes in numerate environments. We consider examples of social trends likely to effect such changes and conclude with implications of shifts in people’s numerate environment for future educational provision, policy and research.

While belief research has become an integral part of the educational research agenda, it has been uneven. One neglected area is the beliefs of adult education teachers. Focusing on five such teachers working in adult basic education and teaching numeracy in Switzerland, this exploratory study uses different data to describe their beliefs about numeracy and its teaching. It is shown that this group holds clearly different views from other groups of adult teachers and it is argued that extending belief research to this target group using different approaches could contribute to a wider knowledge base on beliefs in general.

So far, numeracy as part of basic education has only been considered peripherally in the German-speaking countries, regarding the scientific as well as the practical approaches of adult education. In this article, theoretical and conceptual lines of the discourse are linked systematically. In addition, it is argued for an extension of the discourse by including the concept of subject-oriented basic education, which is based on the concept of numeracy as social practice. Initial findings from two research projects, one looking at the use of numeracy by older people and the other one looking at people with disabilities, reveal subjective contexts of justification and meaning as well as the social embeddedness of numeracy.

Demographic change renders basic skills important at an increasingly older age. Among them, skills in financial matters are becoming increasingly rele- vant. The skills measured in PIAAC and CiLL represent comprehensive cognitive abilities which can be seen as the basis for successful participation in social and economic life. Based on a secondary analysis, this paper shows that financial prac- tices remain for older people, although their numeracy skills proficiency lower than those of younger people. The analysis clearly shows a gender difference in dealing with financial matters: men handle bills and bank statements, women manage the household.