Introduction Teaching Situations as Object of Research: Empirical Studies within Theoretical Perspectives

This volume gathers contributions that share the same double concern: to focus on teaching situations in classrooms, especially the work of the teacher, and to be strongly anchored in original theoretical frameworks allowing to take the classroom situation as unit of analysis. The contributions are not a representative sample of all research sharing this focus worldwide. The theoretical frameworks are grounded mainly (but not solely) in the theory of didactic situations (Brousseau, 1997) and the anthropological theory of didactics (Chevallard, 1992, 1999). There are 11 articles altogether, 9 of which present research works within the chosen theme and focus. The other two are commentary papers offering a reflection on studies of classroom situations from the point of view of other theoretical viewpoints. “Original” in the sense of having been developed specifically for research in mathematics education and not borrowed from other domains such as psychology, sociology, etc.