“Children’s Use of Everyday Mathematical Concepts to Describe, Argue and Negotiate Order of Turn”.

The purpose of this study is to examine how children in municipal preschools use everyday mathematical concepts in social interactions. More specifically, the study elucidates how children use mathematical concepts when finding out whose next to play on the computer.

The children use words and terms to describe the order and their position in the order – their ordinal position. The children not only use expressions such as "I'm after her" and "It's my turn", they also use expressions containing ordinal numbers such as "I'm number three". These words and expressions may not fully cover the exact position in the order, but the words used are adequate to argue for whose next in line for the specific activity. The children use their own expressions for the specific activity and know the precise meaning of the expressions.

Thus the study shows that mathematical concepts are used in the interaction between children, and these concepts could be transferred to more formal mathematical concepts. However, this requires the preschool teachers to use such interactions between the children in practice in order to teach them more formal mathematical concepts.

The data basis constitutes five children, who, during free-play periods at a preschool, were allowed to sit at a computer by themselves. The activity was organised such that the children had to take turns at playing on the computer. The amount of time that each child had in front of the computer was regulated using a stop watch, for which the children themselves were responsible. Data collection was carried out through video footage in the area in which the computer was located. The analysis consisted of three steps: Firstly, episodes with mathematical activity were identified in the video material for further analysis. Secondly, these episodes were transcribed and analysed on the basis of a participatory perspective. Finally, the mathematical concepts were identified in the children's different language expressions, when they had to describe, discuss and negotiate whose turn it was to sit at the computer. For the purposes of the study, these concepts were then named “everyday mathematical concepts”.

Bevemyr, M. (2014). “Children’s Use of Everyday Mathematical Concepts to Describe, Argue and Negotiate Order of Turn”. I: Bergman, L. m.fl. (red.): Childhood, learning and didactics. Educare-vetenskapliga skrifter, 2014:2. Malmö: Malmö Högskola. 63-87.