Use Value and Exchange Value in Discursive Domains of Adult Numeracy Teaching

This paper explores the applicability to adult numeracy/mathematics education of a distinction between discursive domains of adult literacy drawn by Catherine Kell in a recent paper (Kell, 2001). In this formulation, adult numeracy education in Domain One is a product of policies intended to give access to the institutions of modernity for adults deemed to be deficient in this area. It is characterised by formalisation and standardisation of the curriculum and technologisation, unitisation and commodification of learning and learning materials. It is competency-based and outcomes-focussed, with certification being the desired outcome, and explicit equivalence with educational levels in schools. It supports normative claims about the beneficial effects of numeracy for the individual and for society. By contrast, Domain Two numeracy is about informal and non-standard mathematics learning, practices and processes in adults’ lives, which they may regard (or disregard) as ‘just common sense’ and which may bear little relation to formal, taught mathematics. While numeracy in Domain One may have little use value, it has high exchange value and is accordingly valued by adults (and governments). Numeracy in Domain Two is the opposite: it has high use value but no exchange value. What are the implications of this conceptualisation for theorizing adults’ numeracy practices and for adult numeracy education? Might it be possible to reconcile use value and exchange value in the design of an ‘acme’ curriculum for adult numeracy – one that equips adults to use mathematics appropriately, confidently, meaningfully and effectively?