Footprints of COREM and TSD in the development of Didactics of Mathematics in Spain and Argentina

Abstract

In this paper we try to show aspects of the birth and development of didactics in France, initiated by one of its pioneers, Guy Brousseau, and the influence that this development had certain communities of Spain and Argentina. A first section deals with the birth and development of the theory of didactical situations (TSD) at the beginning of the seventies. An institution created at that time, the Center d'Observation et de Recherche pour l'Enseignement des Mathématiques (COREM) played a key role in confronting the teaching practice of a public school with the theoretical developments that trained and in-training researchers developed for more than 25 years. The second section shows institutional aspects of that Center, the relationship among its agents and the resources produced. A third section is dedicated to a brief history of the development of the research field in Spain and Argentina, our countries of origin. Thanks to the support received from our respective states, and from France, we were able to access postgraduate training at the University of Bordeaux. Finally, the creation in 2010 of a Resource Center in Castellón, Spain, where documents produced at COREM are housed, has encouraged us to study and invite other colleagues to delve deeper into this work. We present here an example of a joint project we have been working on in recent years.