"...an aggregate of skills, knowledge, beliefs, dispositions, habits of mind, communication capabilities, and problem solving skills that people need in order to engage effectively in quantitative situations arising in life and work -Policy Research Initiative, Statistics Canada, 2000.            ("Life" including both as Citizen and Personal/Financial )

"an individual's capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded mathematical judgments and to engage in mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual's current and future life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen" -Programme for International Assessment (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2000)

"An innumerate population is less likely to devise good solutions to climate change and a host of other environmental problems than one at home with mathematical and scientific concepts," -Frances Cairncross, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), at the BA annual festival (BBC online 9/4/06)

QL includes:

"the ability to apply quantitative ideas in unfamiliar contexts;" and it requires "flexible thinking that adapts readily to new circumstances.." and Quantitative Literacy involves "sophisticated thinking with elementary mathematics more often than elementary thinking with sophisticated mathematics [MAA report]."