José Luis Cortina, Claudia Zúñiga y Jana Visnovska
Abstract: We advance the conjecture that equipartition constitutes what Brousseau’s calls a didactical obstacle in the fraction realm. Building on Hans Freudenthal, Patrick Thompson and Luis Saldanha´s analyses of the fraction concept, we explain why it is reasonable to consider that equipartition orients pupils to develop ways of conceiving fractions that interfere with the development of a mature understanding of rational numbers.
Keywords: fractions, didactical obstacle, equipartition, rational numbers
