Tracking the Mathematics of Automobile Production: Are Schools Failing to Prepare Students for Work?

Global competition and technological innovation, it is often argued, have fundamentally changed the nature of work, making it more technically demanding, while schools have not kept pace. But the mathematics used in workplaces, much less whole industries, is rarely examined carefully. Observations at 16 sites involved in automobile manufacturing indicate that the level and content of mathematics required by work practices vary substantially. High-volume assembly made minimal to modest demands on workers, primarily for measurement and numerical/quantitative reasoning. Machine tool operation and work in quality labs, however, required substantial spatial and geometric knowledge in two and three dimensions. Technology affected the mathematical demands of work, but the effect was shaped by management orientation and patterns of work organization. These results raise questions about how badly schools are failing to prepare students for "the global competitive workplace. "