Abstract

In the last decade, scientific literature on early learning has consistently placed mathematics as a fundamental area of development in the early years. Nevertheless, we know very little about the characteristics of mathematics teaching in early childhood education in Chile. The goal of this study was to describe the teaching of mathematics in 14 kindergarten classrooms of different socioeconomic status with regards to the time dedicated to mathematics and the specific contents covered. Our results show that approximately 10% of the daily routine in kindergarten is used for mathematics, and that the topics covered are mostly counting, cardinality and basic operations. Topics related to geometry, problem-solving and mathematical language re scarce and more frequent in high-socioeconomic status classrooms. These results are analyzed in light of recent knowledge about mathematics education in early childhood.