An Ethnographic Study of the Computational Strategies of a Group of Young Street Vendors in Beirut

This study examines the computational strategies of ten young street vendors in Beirut by describing, comparing, and analyzing the computational strategies used in solving three types of problems in two settings: transactions in the workplace, word problems, and computation exercises in a school-like setting. The results indicate that vendors' use of semantically-based mental computational strategies was more predominant in transactions and word problems than in computation exercises whereas written school-like computational strategies were used more frequently in computation exercises than in word problems and transactions. There was clear evidence of more effective use of logico-mathematical properties in transactions and word problems than in computation exercises. Moreover, the success rate associated with each of transactions and word problems was much higher than that associated with computation exercises.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.