In the history of the modern school systems in Europe, the development of the didactiques des disciplines (subject didactics) originates in 1) the building of “disciplines” (school subjects) as social organisations aimed at producing and diffusing knowledge and 2) the empowerment of the secondary school teachers through professional associations (Schneuwly, 2011). Subject didactics were thus born as practices of teaching a given discipline and attempts of theorising such practices. Against this background, mass schooling reforms in the 60's -70's in France and their unexpected side effects have prompted a significant turn for the “didactiques des disciplines" (Caillot, 2007; Ligozat & Leutenegger, 2012). They became descriptive and explicative research fields about the irreducible role of the knowledge content in teaching and learning. In this turn, research in didactics of mathematics played an important role in theorising 1) the knowledge transposition inherent to the didactical institutions (Chevallard, 1985/1991; Chevallard & Bosch 2014) and 2) the didactical contract as a framework for understanding the teacher and the students' reciprocal expectations about the content (Brousseau, 1997). In the French-speaking countries, subject didactics went on growing according to the school subjects frames. This paper positions the “didactique comparée” (comparative didactics) as a reconstructive move drawing on certain conceptual frameworks developed in the subject didactics and against the background of socio-cultural approaches of knowledge construction and learning. One major development is the reconceptualization of teaching and learning as a joint action of the teacher and the students in the meaning-making process (Sensevy & Mercier (Ed.), 2007; Ligozat & Schubauer-Leoni, 2010; Sensevy, 2012). We argue that this framework provides a better understanding of the ternary relation [teacher - student(s) – content], across the various forms of institutional contexts in which teaching and learning is purposively organised and across the frontiers of the school subjects. Brousseau, G. (1997). Theory of Didactical Situations in Mathematics: Didactique Des Mathématiques, 1970-1990. Dordrecht [etc.]: Kluwer Academic Publ. Caillot, M. (2007). The Building of a New Academic Field: the case of French didactiques. European Educational Research Journal, 6(2), 125‑130. Chevallard, Y. (1985). La transposition didactique: du savoir savant au savoir enseigné (3rd Ed.). Grenoble: La Pensée Sauvage. Chevallard, Y., & Bosch, M. (2014). Didactic Transposition in Mathematics Education. In S. Lerman (éd.), Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education (p. 170‑174). Springer Netherlands. Consulté à l'adresse http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_48 Ligozat, F., & Schubauer-Leoni, M. L. (2010). The Joint Action Theory in Didactics: Why Do We Need It in the Case of Teaching and Learning Mathematics? In V. Durand-Guerrier, S. Soury-Lavergne, & F. Arzarello (Éd.), Proceedings of the 6th. Congress of the European society for Research in Mathematics Education (p. 1615–1624). Lyon: INRP. Consulté à l'adresse http://www.inrp.fr/editions/editions-electroniques/cerme6/ Ligozat, F., & Leutenegger, F. (2012). Vergleichende Didaktik: Geschichte, Instrumente und Heraufsforderungen aus einer frankophonen Perspektive [Comparative didactics: history, conceptual tools, and development from a French-speaking standpoint]. Pädagogische Rundschau, 66(Heft 6), 751‑771. Schneuwly, B. (2011). Subject Didactics: An Academic Field Related to the Teacher Profession and Teacher Education. In B. Hudson & M. A. Meyer (Éd.), Beyond fragmentation: Didactics, Learning and Teaching in Europe (p. 275‑286). Opladen & Farmington Hills MI: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Sensevy, G. (2012). About the Joint Action Theory in Didactics. Zeitschrift Für Erziehungswissenschaft, 15(3), 503-516. Sensevy, G., & Mercier, A. (Éd.). (2007). Agir Ensemble: L'action didactique conjointe du professeur et des élèves. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
