Book · January 994 citations 110 reads 2,264 authors

partner or may systematically be against the partner's proposal. The "devo-
lution" of the mathematical problem is not linked to the a priori social or-
ganization of the situation, but the development of the situation seems to
depend on the partners.
I propose to distinguish two kinds of processes involved in the group
work situation: the conflicting processes and the cooperation processes be-
tween the partners. A huge literature on the topic seems to point out some
positive effects of such work, be it based on conflicting processes or on co-
operation processes: The solution produced by the group is generally better
than that produced by an individual, and group work seems to provide a
positive impact on long-term learning. But, in some instances of collabora-
tive work, some children seem to regress (Tudge, 1992). Some psycholo-
gists try to understand why some collaborations are more successful than
others. Rogoff (1990) suggests, for example, that different social contexts
may promote different aspects of intellectual functioning: A peer collabora-
tion would facilitate a shift in perspective. These studies manipulated sev-
eral factors in specifically defined experimental settings, but they did not
deal with learning in a broader context such as the school context and they
did not necessarily analyze the learning of complex knowledge like mathe-
matical content. In what follows, I will focus on the role of social interac-
tion in the mathematical aspects of solving processes and in the construction
of knowledge.
148

---

COLETTE LABORDE
2. SOCIOCOGNITIVE CONFLICTS IN THE SOLVING PROCESSES
The role of the sociocognitive conflict is presented in several studies as
possibly producing a positive outcome on (a) the elaboration of the solution
of the problem, and (b) the learning.
This claim is based on the theory of sociocognitive conflict, developed in