Following the two symposia organized in Istanbul (2013) and in Porto (2014), the 2015 symposium brings together researchers from four countries, France, Sweden, Germany, and the UK, and seeks to continue a development of mutual understanding between educational researchers with interests in teaching and learning practices involving specific subject areas.

At the same time  this symposium is to strengthen our conjoint efforts to get beyond fragmentation (Hudson and Meyer, 2011), to reinforce a productive dialogue among European researchers focusing on education and teacher-student interaction in particular, and to bring cohesion to the didactic field in a manner that respects plurality and is enriched by diversity.

Our starting point is analysis of classroom instruction from different research perspectives and traditions in didactics, based on empirical data (short videos extracts of 5 minutes maximum, and information on the lessons shown). Based on / with reference to these data, the participants present and discuss core concepts of their didactic approaches (e.g. the notion of meaning of knowing; transaction, stand fast and encounter; epistemic game; sense construction, developmental tasks and Bildungsgang). The didactic approaches, as well as their underlying epistemic and methodological theories, are explored and compared in the symposium.

The analyses of the teaching-learning interactional processes are based on the description of what the actors in class do and say, which refers to a theoretical frame of acting in class. This theoretical frame can be expressed in terms of French “savoirs” (knowledge or knowing), “relations didactiques”, of John Dewey’s “negotiation of meaning” and of “intergenerational discourse” or other terms according to the different scientific communities. These terms or, more broadly, forms of theorising, can be considered as “markers” of the different didactic systems which we want to explicate in the symposium.

We will discuss the didactic theories and models with respect to their national traditions, but also in view of the ever changing, globalizing world. The programme will therefore include an attempt e at rethinking specific didactic traditions and positions, at facing challenges of a European perspective and at developing general/common didactic ground.

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