The paper presents a case study about the relationship between children’s social interactions and children’s cognitive constructions of addition/subtraction according to propositions of the genetic epistemology. Results come from a microgenetic qualitative analysis of the complete sequence of videotaped events concerning the interrelationship among: a) cognitive strategies expressed by three boys when solving together learning tasks about addition/subtraction; b) those strategies with adult’s interventions. Subjects were three boys (aged 7,4; 8,6; and 9,1) who attended the first grade of a public Elementary School. Results partially support the proposed hypotheses of a complex cyclical model of interrelationship among partners’ productions and with adult’s interventions. Piaget’s equilibration model explains the complexity of the discussed social interactions, in their necessary, but not sufficient relationship, with the individual cognitive constructions.
Equilibration process; children’s social interaction; learning in small groups