Home Math Environment: A Comparison of Play-Based and Skill-Based Approaches Across Kosovo, Türkiye, and the U.S.

Research Findings: Understanding how young children learn math at home is very important, as early numeracy skills predict later academic success and long-term educational trajectories. This cross-national study examined how parents of children aged 4–9 from Kosovo (N = 162), Türkiye (N = 422), and the U.S. (N = 357) socialize their children’s math learning in the home. Parents completed surveys addressing four research questions: 1) whether parents differed in using play-based versus skill-based approaches and whether these approaches varied across countries; 2) whether play-based and skill-based approaches differed for boys versus girls across countries; 3) whether play-based and skill-based approaches differed for younger children (ages 4–5) versus older children (ages 6–9) across countries; and 4) whether math socialization practices differed across countries and how they were related to the play-based and skill-based approaches. Results indicated that math engagement using play-based and skill-based approaches varied across countries and children’s age groups. However, no significant gender differences were found. Beliefs about the importance of helping children with math and math readiness benchmarks were related to both approaches.Practice or Policy: The findings underscore that math engagement is shaped by cultural context, developmental stage, and parents’ beliefs about their responsibilities in supporting their children’s math learning. The current findings highlight the need for culturally responsive models for the home math environment, rather than assuming that the Western findings are generalizable to every cultural context. Importantly, culturally responsive practices should not only be tailored to broad cultural groups, but also to the specific context of individual families.