Journal Press India^®

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Understanding how students construct abstract mathematical knowledge is a central aim of research in mathematics education. Abstraction in Context (AiC) is a theoretical-methodological framework for studying students’ processes of constructing abstract mathematical knowledge as they occur in a mathematical, social, curricular and learning-environment context. AiC builds on ideas by Freudenthal, Davydov and others. According to AiC, processes of abstraction have three stages: need, emergence and consolidation. The emergence of new (to the student) constructs is treated by means of a model of three observable epistemic actions: Recognizing, Building-with and Constructing – the RBC-model. In this paper, I give an introduction to AiC, and an overview of pertinent research studies.

Keywords

Abstraction; Knowledge Construction; Context

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