9353573 Fuson The research will focus on cultural and social contexts of urban Latino children's mathematics learning. It will trace multiple paths of children's construction of addition, subtraction, place value, and problem solving understanding within primary school classrooms that contain social, material, linguistic, and cultural supports for such construction. Teaching studies will be carried out in cooperation with teachers of English-speaking and Spanish- speaking classrooms to discover culturally relevant conceptual and social supports that facilitate children's mathematical thinking in the specified areas. The project will also focus on ways to invole low-literacy parents of poor urban Latino children in supporting their children's mathematical thinking at home and in school. The results will involve developing theories in four areas: tenstructured methods of single-digit addition and subtraction like those used so effectively by Asian children, multidigit and place- value thinking, word problem solving, and classroom conceptual supports for children's mathematical thinking. The resulting improved theories, as well as the descriptions and analyses of individual children's learning, will provide a basis for large- scale teacher development and school change activities in urban schools. The results will also contribute to our understanding of all children's thinking in these mathematical areas. ***
