Awards

• Winner of American Anthropological Association/Society for Psychological Anthropology Stirling Prize 2014
• Winner of American Anthropological Association/Society for Psychological Anthropology Stirling Prize 2014.
• Winner of Best Authored Book Award, Cognitive Development Society 2013
• Winner of Eleanor E. Maccoby Book Award, American Psychological Association, Division 7 2015
• Winner of Society for Research on Adolescence Best Authored Book Awards 2013
• Winner of Society for Research on Adolescence Best Authored Book Awards 2013.

Overview

Drawing upon field studies conducted in 1978, 1980 and 2001 with the Oksapmin, a remote Papua New Guinea group, Geoffrey B. Saxe traces the emergence of new forms of numerical representations and ideas in the social history of the community. In traditional life, the Oksapmin used a counting system that makes use of twenty-seven parts of the body; there is no evidence that the group used arithmetic in prehistory. As practices of economic exchange and schooling have shifted, children and adults unwittingly reproduced and altered the system in order to solve new kinds of numerical and arithmetical problems, a process that has led to new forms of collective representations in the community. While Dr Saxe's focus is on the Oksapmin, the insights and general framework he provides are useful for understanding shifting representational forms and emerging cognitive functions in any human community.

Full Product Details

9781107685697

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Reviews

...This book is a tour de force in moving theory toward a fully historical, social and activity based account of cultural and developmental change. The case presented is particular to an exotic (to us) group, but the theoretical apparatus developed has wide-ranging application. This book isn't about them it is about us as well. It is an important contribution to developmental theory. --Joseph Glick, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Human Development ...comprehensive and well documented... should appeal to a wide audience beyond cultural anthropology and cultural psychology... it will delight... this book should be of interest worldwide... --Pierre R. Dasen, University of Geneva, Alterstices deeply impressed with its contributions to our understanding of cognitive development. -- Book Award from the Cognitive Development Society ...Saxe's background chapters on his personal journey and his visits to Oksapmin and the historical background of currency changes in Papua New Guinea together with the carefully developed reports of each study and the overall linkage with his theoretical perspective make this an important contribution to psychology especially within the Pacific Rim region, and a crucial reference for those in Papua New Guinea interested in mathematics, education, cognition, psychology, anthropology and/or sociology. --Kay Owens, Charles Sturt University, Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology

Author Information

Dr Geoffrey Saxe has conducted research on mathematical cognition and culture in a variety of settings, including remote parts of Papua New Guinea, urban and rural areas of northeastern Brazil and elementary and middle school classrooms in the United States. His prior books include Culture and Cognitive Development: Studies in Mathematical Understanding (1991) and Social Processes in Early Number Development (with S. Guberman and M. Gearhart, 1987). He is currently a professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley.

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