The Issue in Brief

Everyday, people around the world use mathematical concepts and techniques in the marketplace to conduct commercial transactions. What is interesting is that they have not learned these concepts and techniques in school, but have devised ways to survive as vendors and in life without the benefit of formal mathematical instruction.

While most studies of informal versus formal mathematics to date have focused on children, adult mathematical practices present both similarities and differences to children's mathematical learning. Research has demonstrated that when people learn and have a basic understanding of a number system, they can invent their own ways of using it to solve mathematical problems. To people struggling to survive in underdeveloped countries, formal, or classroom, mathematics is sometimes of little use. It is the informal, or street, mathematics that sustains them in their everyday lives. In most cases, street math develops because of problem-solving needs in their everyday lives.

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The Context in Brazil

Brazil is a nation struggling to support its people. Of the 165 million people who live there, about 25% exist below the poverty line. In order to survive, between 16.5 and 30 million Brazilians work in the informal economy. These workers have little formal education: 60% have attended school for less than eight years.

Education in Brazil is both inadequate and inequitable. In 1980, around four million children, or 27% between the ages of 7 and 14, did not attend school. The reasons why children never attend school or leave at a young age are basically threefold. First, there are deficiencies in the school system because of the lack of funding. The wealth in Brazil is concentrated among the minority elite who resists paying additional taxes that are necessary to increase the supply and quantity of public education for children from poor families. Second, there are pressures on poor families to send their children into the job market at an early age. A typical laborer's family income increases about 58% if his wife and children enter the labor market. And third, there is not a high demand for educated labor. Earning a minimal living for the poor in Brazil appears to still require little to no schooling.

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