The logical-argumentative modalities in Italian language primary and lower secondary school geometry textbooks

Abstract

This article analyses the logical-argumentative strategies contained in mathematics schoolbooks, focusing on geometry and, specifically, on polygons, considering the recursiveness of the topic in continuity between school orders. The investigation is strictly interdisciplinary between mathematics and linguistics, with particular attention for didactic, and is part of a larger ongoing research project. After some initial paragraphs devoted to describing the corpus and the text analysis criteria, we will move on to a historical-disciplinary framework of the topic, and then to the definition of the different logical-argumentative modes (linked to “doing”, “imagining” and “abstracting”); quantitative data about the distribution in the corpus will also be offered. Some possible teaching implications emerging from the analyses will be mentioned in the conclusions.