Resumen

This paper explores the mathematical ideas that emerge across two workplace settings, namely street vending and bus conducting. The purpose of this study was to delineate a trajectory describing potential mathematical structures underlying bus conducting and street vending activities and to extract a conceptual model that could explain the nature of the practitioners’ mathematical knowledge and its connection to formal mathematics. We conducted a meta-analysis of the problem solving behavior and narratives of street vendors and bus conductors in two geographic sites in Beirut, Lebanon and Chennai, India. Principled by Vergnaud’s theory of conceptual fields, the researchers examined heuristics-in-action that transpired as a result of practitioners’ engagement in their respective work situations.