More mathematics educators now encourage links between the knowledge and skills gained in the mathematics classroom and students' ability to handle real-life situations that require activation of mathematical knowledge and skills (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM),1989; Willis, 1990; Heuvel-Panhuizen and Gravemeijer, 1991). Such "handling" should be interpreted broadly, to mean not only application of mathematical procedures and concepts, but also many other abilities, such as the ability to critically reflect on information encountered (Frankenstein, 1989) or to understand and appreciate mathematical phenomena in the world, such as symmetry in the arts and nature.

The Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) initiative in the Netherlands that started in the early 1980s is an example of an attempt to develop educational experiences in light of the characteristics of real-world mathematical tasks and practices. RME is based upon the assumption that mathematics is an essential and important aspect of society, and therefore that mathematics education should be derived from real-life situations and should aim to create those skills applicable in any societal situation (family, work, etc). RME in adult education aims to optimize mathematical knowledge, skills, and problem-solving strategies that people have already been using in everyday life, or learned in or out of school, so that they can apply those strategies flexibly in all kinds of situations, have more control over their own personal, societal and work lives, and undertake further learning or training. Therefore, RME implies that school students and adults are to also be trained in cooperative learning and in recognizing and facilitating their own problem-solving procedures, strategies, and learning processes (van Groenestijn, 1998).

In the adult education sector, which is growing and becoming more formalized in many countries due to economic considerations and the need for lifelong learning, attention to mathematical skills is very visible (Benn, 1997). Educators working with adults aim to assist learners in developing mathematical concepts and relationships in ways that are personally meaningful but also functional. Adult educators usually assume that there is rarely only one right way, but a wide variety of strategies that work well when solving functional computational problems. Adults' personal methods of using mathematics are encouraged and valued. This is often a significant difference from traditional (pre-reform) school-based mathematics teaching, within which school students were often expected to follow the one correct method, or algorithm, introduced by the teacher to solve a problem.

The National Institute for Literacy in the United States has sponsored several efforts to define critical skill areas, as part of its Equipped for the Future initiative. One key project, by the Adult Numeracy Network (ANN) (Curry, Schmitt, and Waldron, 1996), was designed to reach a consensus on the kinds of mathematics that adults should know and hence are important to teach and assess in adult education. This project aimed to consolidate several curricular perspectives, mainly those offered by the NCTM (1989) the SCANS Commission (1991), and prior work by the ABE Mathematics Team in Massachusetts (Leonelli, Merson, Schmitt, and Schwendeman, 1994), as well as the results of interviews with hundreds of adult learners, numeracy teachers, and employers.

The ANN's Framework for Adult Numeracy Standards: The Mathematical Skills and Abilities Adults Need to be Equipped for the Future, organized needed knowledge into seven broad themes or areas: Relevance/connections, Problem solving/reasoning/decision making, Communication, Number and number sense, Data, Geometry: spatial sense and measurement, and Algebra: patterns and functions. The first three themes are concerned with processes of being numerate, while the latter four cover key content areas of mathematics. Again, this framework highlights and supports the view that numeracy is about making meaning of mathematical information, and that it encompasses a broad spectrum of skills and knowledge bases.