LAUSR

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the nature of teaching mathematical thinking and presents a case study of a single Japanese lesson where the characteristics of mathematical thinking and the teaching thereof are identified in relation to multiplication. The raison d’être for this teaching is questioned and investigated by looking at how multiplication is described in the curriculum and representative textbook material. It is seen how Japanese teachers are institutionally conditioned to incorporate mathematical thinking in the context of multiplication, something which may appear in contrast to other countries. The lesson is analysed using the notion of praxeologies and didactic co-determination conceptualised in the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic.