Commentary on a special issue: Davydov’s approach in the XXI century

Abstract

The articles in this special issue, collectively, provide overwhelming evidence that a curriculum which has as its primary basis the counting of discrete objects (and hence which introduces numbers as discrete) is not an effective or rational organisation. In this commentary, I discuss the contribution of each article to an understanding of Davydov’s ontology and epistemology, issues around the transposition of a pedagogy or curriculum from one country to another, early algebra and proportional or multiplicative reasoning. From Davydov’s own research and the writing in these articles, we know children are able to understand abstract structures from an early age. The thinking in this special issue provides tools to investigate and question any context in which such understanding is not routinely taking hold.