Reviews: Mathematics in the Vernacular

Abstract

In Cross-Cultural Studies in Cognition and Mathematics David Laney describes the ambitious Indigenous Mathematics Project carried out in Papua New Guinea (P.N.G.) with the full support of the P.N.G. Department of Education and set up to examine the relationship between children's cultural background and their pattern of cognitive development, particularly with respect to category formation. Whether the acquisition of school arithmetic was influenced by these factors was also investigated, though less comprehensively. The book seems a ready example of Brislin's (1983) contention that “in the last four to five years cross-cultural studies have been recognized as central to theory development by large numbers of psychologists” (p. 364).