Abstract. This introduction sets the scene for the remainder of the book by considering first the international context of widespread concern about the improvement of numeracy skills. This is related to reform movements in the UK, the US and other countries aimed at modernising primary (elementary) school mathematics curricula. A detailed account is given of the National Numeracy Strategy in England, a systemic government-imposed response to concern about standards implemented in 1999/2000. This includes a discussion of the alternative meanings of numeracy. An earlier initiative sponsored by a UK charitable trust reacting to concern about primary numeracy was the Leverhulme Numeracy Research Programme. This large-scale longitudinal study and linked set of case-study projects, focusing on reasons for low attainment, took place during 1997-2002. This book, and each other in the same series, is based on results of that research. The timescale fortuitously enabled the research team to also report on some effects of the systemic reform in the National Numeracy Strategy. 1. THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT In many countries, there are recurring periods of national concern about the low standards of calculation skills shown by children in primary (elementary) schools. Recently these concerns have become more urgent and more political with the publication of international comparisons of mathematical achievement, first at secondary and more recently at primary level (e. g. Lapointe, Mead et al. 1992; Mullis et al., 1997).
About the Author:

Dave Baker studied mathematics before becoming a teacher of mathematics in schools. He taught on teacher education programmes and then undertook research into teaching and learning mathematics in schools and its links to children's homes. He has focused on issues of social justice in mathematics and has sought to extend current developments in pedagogy towards widening access and to the need to transform dominant practices in schooling. He has published two books, presented at many conferences and published academic papers on mathematics education.

Prof. Street trained in anthropology and has a longstanding commitment to linking ethnographic-style research on the cultural dimension of language and literacy with contemporary practice in education and in development. He has engaged in this in a number of countries - USA, S. Africa, Nepal, India, Iran etc. and has published 12 books and over 80 academic articles in international contexts. He has recently worked with colleagues in mathematics education to consider the implications of these approaches for numeracy research, pedagogy and curriculum.

Dr. Alison Tomlin has worked as a teacher and manager in adult literacy and numeracy community education settings, and as a manager of an inner city adult education programme which sought to be responsive to demand for education from local communities. Following doctoral research in adult numeracy education organised in collaboration with a group of students of adult numeracy, she was a researcher with the home/school numeracy practices team, and is now researching in adult numeracy. She has published articles relating to home/school numeracy practices research and to adult literacy and numeracy education.