Fundamental concepts in didactics: perspectives provided by an anthropological approach

ABSTRACT

This lecture is intended to provide a first introduction to the approach hereafter styled anthropological in the analysis of the didactic.

Some preliminary observations help make clear what the « rules of the game » are, and two introductory examples illustrate the spirit of the thing. Then comes a presentation of the theory and of its main concepts, as they have grown out of earlier formulations relating to the study of the didactic transposition process.
The development out of the theory stresses the need for the didactics of mathernatics to position itself, within the framework of a didactic anthropology of knowledge, in relation to a didactics of knowledge to which it has hitherto contributed more than any other didactics.

Research in Didactique of Mathematics (selected papers), pp. 131-167