Guy Brousseau (4 February 1933 – 15 February 2024) was a French mathematics

educationalist Education sciences, also known as education studies or education theory, and traditionally called ''pedagogy'', seek to describe, understand, and prescribe education including education policy. Subfields include comparative education, educationa ...

Early life and education

Guy Brousseau was born on 4 February 1933, in

Taza Taza () is a city in northern Morocco occupying the corridor between the Rif mountains and Middle Atlas mountains, about 120 km east of Fez and 150 km south of Al Hoceima. It recorded a population of 148,406 in the 2019 Moroccan ...

, Morocco. From an early age, he wanted to become a primary school teacher, which he did for several years until he was recruited as an assistant at

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

University. From 1967 to 1969, he was Director of the Centre de recherches pour l'enseignement des mathématiques at the CRDP de Bordeaux, and in 1969 became Assistant of Mathematics at the Faculté des Sciences de Bordeaux. In 1968, he obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a bachelor's degree in educational science.

Career and research

Brousseau began his career as a teacher in 1953. He began publishing in 1961, followed by a textbook for the first year of elementary school (1965), and continued to publish in the scientific field. In the late 1960s, after obtaining a degree in mathematics, he joined the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (, ) is a public research university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Talence. There are al ...

. Brousseau founded COREM (Centre pour l'Observation et la Recherche sur l'Enseignement des Mathématiques), which he ran from 1973 to 1998 at the Jules Michelet elementary school in Talence (Gironde). The school went on to achieve international renown. He subsequently founded the LADIST (Laboratoire Aquitain de Didactique des Sciences et Techniques), which supported COREM. In 1986, he obtained a doctorate in science and, in 1991, became a

university professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

at the newly-created IUFM d'

Aquitaine Aquitaine (, ; ; ; ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former Regions of France, administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administ ...

, where he worked until 1998. He decided to create the CREM (Centre de Recherche pour l'Enseignement des Mathématiques) in Bordeaux following his meeting with André Lichnerowicz. He was Professor Emeritus at the IUFM d'Aquitaine. He also held honorary doctorates from the University of Montreal (1997) and the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

(2004). His main theoretical contribution is the theory of didactic situations, a theory initiated in the early 1970s. Together with Gérard Vergnaud's conceptual field theory and Yves Chevallard's anthropological theory of didactics, it forms one of the three main theoretical frameworks of the French school of mathematics didactics. Brousseau published numerous works on mathematics from 1965 to 2001, with the help of numerous collaborators. Brousseau carried out a large number of research and training missions in Europe, Latin America and North America, as well as in

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and

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. His research focuses on the teaching of natural and

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers (''decimal fractions'') of th ...

numbers,

probability Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

, elementary algebra,

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

and reasoning. Brousseau died on 15 February 2024, at the age of 91.

Awards and honours

In 2003, Brousseau was awarded the first Felix Klein Medal by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.

Publications

* Brousseau, Guy (1965). ''Les mathématiques du cours préparatoire collaboration'' de G. Ratier. * * * Brousseau, Guy; Felix, Lucienne (1972). ''Mathématique et thèmes d'activité à l'école maternelle'' (in French). * Brousseau, Guy (1986). ''Théorisation des phénomènes d'enseignement des Mathématiques'' (in French). * Brousseau, Guy; Warfield, Virginia (1998) "The case of GAEL". in Journal of Mathematical Behavior, No. 18 (1), 1–46, * Brousseau, Guy (2000) ''Que peut-on enseigner en mathématiques à l'école primaire et pourquoi ?'' (in French) Repères-IREM. (38): pp. 7–10. * Brousseau, Guy (2001). ''Les erreurs des élèves en mathématiques : Étude dans le cadre de la théorie des situations didactiques'' (in French). Petit x 57, 5–30 (IREM et CRDP de Grenoble) * Brousseau, Guy (2004). ''L'émergence d'une science de la didactique des mathématiques : motifs et enjeux'' (in French). Repères-IREM. (55): pp. 19–34. * Brousseau, Guy (1998). ''La théorie des situations didactiques. Recueil de textes de Didactique des mathématiques 1970-1990" présentés par M. Cooper et N. Balacheff, Rosamund Sutherland et Virginia Warfield'' (in French). (La pensée sauvage, Grenoble). * He will then publish on local media (18 ''Cahiers de l’IREM de Bordeaux'' de 1969 à 1978). * Most of these texts have been published in magazines such as R.D.M. or in a collection published in English by Kluwer in 1997 under the title: ''Theory of Didactical Situations in Mathematics.'' * N. and G. BROUSSEAU (1987). ''Rationnels et décimaux dans la scolarité obligatoire'' (in French).

References

External links