Abstract
Based on the assumption that families are children’s first educators, the focus of this chapter is on the values parents hold about mathematics for young children at home. The data were collected from nine Norwegian parents through photo-elicitated focus group interviews, where the parents’ own photos were used as stimuli for the interviews. The findings reveal that the parents valued their children learning numbers, counting skills, early measuring concepts and use of money. The different mathematics skills were described with examples of the support that they provided their children, and information about what they considered to be the stages in the development of these skills. The analysis was done using a narrative approach to identify how parents saw their children authoring, sense-making, collaborating, and using non-verbal communication which gave insights into the values they held.
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Notes
- 1.
I adopt the word ‘preschool’ as a label for institutions for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Norway, for 1–5 year-old children.
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Lembrér, D. (2020). Parents’ Valuing of Mathematics for Young Children. In: Carlsen, M., Erfjord, I., Hundeland, P.S. (eds) Mathematics Education in the Early Years. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34776-5_24
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