Review of Calculation vs. Context: Quantitative Literacy and Its Implications for Teacher Education by Bernard L. Madison and Lynn Arthur Steen (Editors)

Abstract

Madison, Bernard L. and Steen, Lynn Arthur (Eds.). Calculation vs. Context: Quantitative Literacy and Its Implications for Teacher Education. (Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, 2009). 197 pp. Softcover. ISBN 978-0-88385-908-7. Available free on the MAA website at http://www.maa.org/ql/calcvscontext.htmlThe papers in Calculation vs. Context discuss the role of quantitative literacy in the K-12 curriculum and in teacher education. The papers present a varied set of perspectives and address three themes: the changing environment of education in American society; the challenges, and the necessity, of preparing teachers to teach quantitative literacy and of including quantitative literacy in the K-12 education; and cross-disciplinary approaches to quantitative literacy. While the conclusion reached by several of the authors is that the best place to teach quantitative literacy is at the college level, the book offers serious considerations of how quantitative literacy can and should inform the K-12 curriculum. The book also marks a turning point in the quantitative literacy movement as “QL explorers,” as Lynn Steen calls them, move beyond issues of definitions and content to a discussion of how to bring quantitative literacy into a broader setting.