Social constructivism is just one view of learning that places emphasis on the social aspects of learning. Other theoretical positions, such as activity theory, also emphasise the importance of social interactions. Along with social constructivism, Vygotsky's writings on children's learning have recently also undergone close scru tiny and researchers are attempting a synthesis of aspects ofVygotskian theory and social constructivism. This re-examination of Vygotsky's work is taking place in many other subject fields besides mathematics, such as language learning by young children. It is interesting to speculate why Vygotsky's writings have appealed to so many researchers in different cultures and decades later than his own times. Given the recent increased emphasis on the social nature of learning and on the interactions between student, teacher and context factors, a finer grained analysis of the nature of different theories of learning now seems to be critical, and it was considered that different views of students' learning of mathematics needed to be acknowledged in the discussions of the Working Group.

Inhalt
1.1: Young Children's Mathematical Learning: Complexities and Subtleties.- 2.1: Constructivism and Activity Theory: A Consideration of Their Similarities and Differences as They Relate to Mathematics Education.- 2.2: A Sociocultural View of the Mathematics Education of Young Children.- 2.3: Social-Cultural Approaches in Early Childhood Mathematics Education: A Discussion.- 3.1: The Psychological Nature of Concepts.- 3.2: What Concepts are and How Concepts are Formed.- 3.3: Young Children's Formation of Numerical Concepts: Or 8 = 9 + 7.- 3.4: Concept Formation Process and an Individual Child's Intelligence.- 4.1: Interactions between Children in Mathematics Class: An Example Concerning the Concept of Number.- 4.2: What is the Difference between One, UN and YI?.- 4.3: How do Social Interactions among Children Contribute to Learning?.- 4.4: Cultural and Social Environmental Hurdles a Tanzanian Child Must Jump in the Acquisition of Mathematics Concepts.- 5.1: Limitations of Iconic and Symbolic Representations of Arithmetical Concepts in Early Grades of Primary School.- 5.2: Language Activity, Conceptualization and Problem.- 5.3: Children Talking Mathematically in Multilingual Classrooms: Issues in the Role of Language.- 5.4: Use of Language in Elementary Geometry by Students and Textbooks.- 6.1: Concept Development in Early Childhood Mathematics: Teachers' Theories and Research.- 6.2: Teachers' Beliefs about Concept Formation and Curriculum Decision-Making in Early Mathematics.- 6.3: Classroom Models for Young Children's Mathematical Ideas.- 6.4: Joensuu and Mathematical Thinking.- 7.1: Future Research Directions in Young Children's Early Learning of Mathematics.