Disputes in curriculum development processes: o Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques (1997-1999) na FrançaAbstract
This work analyzes the process of developing the Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques, published in France between 1997 and 1999, focusing on the definition of knowledge for teaching and for the education of mathematics teachers. The study considers Brazilian and French scholarship on historical research and draws on Hofstetter and Schneuwly’s studies on the concept of expert and the production of knowledge, as well as on Bourdieu’s work to understand the fields and agents involved. Normative documents, letters, expert opinions, meeting records, and other sources were analyzed, providing a historical perspective on the processes, negotiations, and behind-the-scenes dynamics of curriculum development and allowing the identification of the participation of agents and experts, as well as the interactions and tensions among different fields.
Keywords:
history of mathematics education; secondary education; curriculum development; experts
Resumo
Este trabalho analisa os processos de elaboração do Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques, publicado na França entre 1997 e 1999, no que diz respeito à definição dos saberes do ensino e da formação de professores que ensinam matemática. Para a escrita da pesquisa histórica, são considerados estudos brasileiros e franceses. O trabalho apoia-se nos estudos de Hofstetter e Schneuwly sobre o conceito de expert e a produção de saberes, bem como em Bourdieu, para a compreensão dos campos e dos agentes. Foram mobilizados documentos normativos, cartas, pareceres, registros de reuniões, entre outras fontes, que permitiram construir uma perspectiva histórica dos processos, das negociações e dos bastidores da elaboração curricular, identificando a participação de agentes e experts, assim como as interações e tensões entre diferentes campos.
Palavras-chave:
história da educação matemática; ensino secundário; produção curricular; experts
Resumen
Este trabajo analiza los procesos de elaboración del Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques, publicado en Francia entre 1997 y 1999, en lo que respecta a la definición de los saberes de la enseñanza y de la formación de profesores que enseñan matemáticas. Para la construcción de la investigación histórica, se consideran estudios brasileños y franceses. El trabajo se apoya en los estudios de Hofstetter y Schneuwly sobre el concepto de experto y la producción de saberes, así como en Bourdieu, para comprender los campos y los agentes. Se utilizaron documentos normativos, cartas, dictámenes, actas de reuniones y otras fuentes, que permitieron construir una perspectiva histórica de los procesos, las negociaciones y los entresijos de la elaboración curricular, identificando la participación de agentes y expertos, así como las interacciones y tensiones entre diferentes campos.
Palabras clave:
historia de la educación matemática; educación secundaria; elaboración curricular; expertos
Introduction
Normative and curricular documents in mathematics have been used in research, highlighting the importance of these sources for understanding the constitution of school knowledge. More recent studies show a growing attention not only to published official texts, but also to the behind-the-scenes aspects of their creation, which involve negotiations, disputes, and the actions of different actors.
In Brazil, Valente (2023) illustrates the potential of considering the behind-the-scenes aspects of curriculum production in mathematics and analyzes its authorship, the debates that permeate it, and the new knowledge that is constituted in this process. In the French context, D' Enfert et al. (2019) clarify that for a long time historians have privileged the analysis of definitive official texts and school textbooks, ignoring the processes of elaboration.
The feasibility and relevance of research that considers the process and dynamics of curriculum document development become even more significant when considering the very nature of the educational context. As Raulin (2006) points out, schools and education are spaces of multiple confrontations of ideas, in which teaching and training professionals, social work agents, education system managers at different levels, political leaders, specialists, social partners, and parents interact.
In this sense, this work1 analyzes the processes of elaboration of the Programme de la class de troisième de Mathématiques2 (Ministère de l’Éducation nationale [MEN], 1998), published in France (1997-1999), specifically concerning the definition of the knowledge involved in teaching and in the training of teachers who teach mathematics. The research offers a historical perspective on the processes, negotiations, and behind-the-scenes aspects of this curriculum development, linking normative documents, opinions, letters, and meeting records with theoretical frameworks that allow for an understanding of the role of agents and experts, and the interaction between different fields in curriculum production.
The choice of this curriculum is justified by the fact that it is a document situated within the context of the 1990s in France, a time of reforms resulting from the 1989 educational orientation law and the creation of the Conseil National des Programmes (CNP) in 1990. The troisième class, at that time, was the last year of collège, the final stage of compulsory schooling and preparation for lycée. From the inventory carried out in the collections of the Université de Limoges and the Archives Nationales of France, documents related to the process of its production and with elements about it were located: initial project, consultations, union and association opinions, technical meetings, intervention, official publication and dissemination documents.
This research seeks to answer the following question: "What are the processes involved in developing the Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques, published in France (1997-1999), with regard to defining the knowledge required for teaching and training teachers who teach mathematics?"
This historical research that makes use of Brazilian and French references on the writing of history, the role of the historian and working with archives (Charmasson, 2005; Garnica & Souza, 2012; Moyon, 2025; Thuillier, 2005; Valente, 2021; Valente et al., 2021). The analysis utilized studies by Hofstetter and Schneuwly (2021) and other authors in understanding the concept of expert and the production of knowledge; and Bourdieu (2003) in discussions about the concept of field.
From documents to behind-the-scenes: theoretical and methodological aspects of the research
This work, based on historical research, draws on documents from inventories conducted in France, considering the behind-the-scenes aspects of a curriculum document, the processes and dynamics involved in its production, and the participation of agents and experts.
In this context, “the document is not innocuous. It is first and foremost the result of a conscious or unconscious assembly of history, of the era, of society [...] The document is a monument” (Le Goff, 1990, pp. 548-549), and this implies considering the curriculum and related documents as monuments that bear marks and indicators of the context, relationships, and disputes.
From this perspective, it is up to the historian to problematize traces and transform them into objects of historical analysis. Thus, the investigation considers, in terms of the elaboration of curricular documents, among other aspects, “international contexts, funding from foreign organizations, educational policies, actions of national, state and municipal governments, and global movements for curricular reorganization” (Valente, 2021, p. 30).
With regard to educational policies and government actions, the French educational context in the 1990s was considered, especially from the 1989 educational orientation law onwards, with emphasis on the creation of the CNP in 1990 (Bret & Heurdier, 2019; D' Enfert et al., 2019; Heurdier, 2019).
In understanding the development of curricular documents and curricular reorganization, the Charte des programmes (MEN, 1992), was considered. It was drafted by the CNP and it defined the procedures and framework for the development of all programs linked to the Ministry of Education. The writings of Raulin (2006), a member of the CNP, were also used to understand the logic and dynamics involved in the production of school programs.
In the context of historical research, "the historian must pay attention to how the central administration is viewed by those involved" (Thuillier, 2005, p. 124). In the case of this research, we will analyze the way in which the central administration, represented in this context by the CNP, was viewed by those involved in and participating in curriculum production, especially by teachers.
The role of the historian also includes transforming the existing traces of documents into historical facts through a process of rigorous elaboration and reasoning (Valente, 2007), as well as understanding curricular documents from a problematization perspective and without judgment. Thus, the aim is to understand this production "in its own context, without (re)interpreting it through modern norms and concepts" (Moyon, 2025, p. 55).
The sources used in this investigation were identified from inventories carried out in two archives located at the Université de Limoges - Fonds patrimonial “Histoire de l'éducation” de l'Université de Limoges (FP-HEL) and Institut de Recherche sur l'Enseignement des Mathématiques (IREM) -; and later in the Archives Nationales de France in Paris3. According to Silva et al. (2025, p. 52), the construction of inventories can be understood as a “dynamic tool for identifying, systematizing and socializing documents” present in archives. Archives in the French context are defined as follows:
Archives are all documents, regardless of their date, form, or physical medium, produced or received by any natural or legal person and by any public or private service or organization in the course of their activities. The preservation of archives is organized in the public interest, both for the management needs and substantiation of the rights of natural or legal persons, public or private, and for historical research (França, 2004, art. L. 211-1).
The sources used in this investigation were 31 documents (1997-1999), including: 1 preliminary project and 1 follow-up document; 3 reports from the national consultation involving academies, universities and the inspection; 7 letters of invitation; 7 attendance certificates relating to the meetings of the Technical Group Disciplinaire de Mathématiques (GTD); 2 CNP opinions; 2 opinions from the Syndicat National des Second Teachings Degré (SNES); 1 opinion from the Association des Professors of Mathématiques de l'Enseignement Public (APMEP)4; 2 opinions from the Conseil Supérieur de l'Éducation (CSE)5; the normative document published in the Bulletin Officiel (1998); 2 dissemination booklets (1999); and 2 attendance and composition lists of the GTD. The combination and choice of these documents follows the words of Garnica and Souza (2012, p. 40) when they argue that sources are like "residues that the historian [...] has at their disposal" or "the residues that historians create to begin their investigations".
During the analysis, the guidelines of Valente (2021) were followed, which proposes understanding curricular documents as "black boxes" (Latour, 2000), in the sense of considering them as results of elaboration processes traversed by tensions between different fields. Considering this perspective, the analysis prioritized the processes and dynamics behind the scenes and the participation of the experts responsible for writing the curricular proposal.
According to Hofstetter and Schneuwly (2021, p. 20), the term expert refers to someone who performs expertise, evaluating problems or institutions based on their knowledge and skills. In this case, "the expert participates in a procedure that is somehow external to them", which consequently implies elements involving a demand, a requester, an expertise process, and a result.
The experts in the context of this research were the “personnel called upon to give their opinions, providing directives to governments on how to manage national school systems” (Valente et al., 2021, p. 11). In this sense, it is worth considering that
The production of knowledge resulting from the work of experts, the production resulting from tensions between different fields..., are embedded in the professionalization process, defining the reference knowledge that should be present in teacher training at each time (Valente et al., 2021, p. 14).
The analysis of a production, in this case, the curriculum document, is carried out here from the tensions between different fields. From Bourdieu's perspective (2003, p. 120), " the structure of the field is a state of the power relation between the agents or institutions involved in the struggle or, if you prefer, of the distribution of specific capital which, accumulated in the course of previous struggles, guides subsequent strategies".
In this research, the concept is mobilized in the sense of considering that the performance of experts is not reduced to their individual effort, but is linked to the disputes, rules, and hierarchies inherent to the space in which they are inserted. Thus, as Silva and Bertini (2023a, 2023b) highlight, the legitimation of expertise in the educational field depends not only on the agent who exercises it, but also on the structure and function of the field itself, in which different interests and positions confront each other. As a result of these tensions, “the initial expertise of the person called upon to elaborate a new curricular document is transformed with this production: there is a new expertise contained in this process of producing official guidelines for teaching and teacher training” (Mendes & Valente, 2023, p. 2).
The analysis was based on the reading and articulation of the documents, but, before that, the selected documents were organized. This process involved extracting information such as: document name, body or author responsible for publication, publication date, document type, a brief description, guidelines for teaching, guidelines for teacher training, general authors involved in the elaboration, and possible experts. The diversity of selected documents made it possible, as Moyon (2025, p. 64) suggests, to situate the sources “in a rich and multidimensional contextual perspective... in order to avoid a very internalist analysis”.
The information was organized into six categories related to this curriculum development: 1) Elaboration, first version and national consultation, beginning in 1997 and continuing into early 1998; 2) Opinions, debates and synthesis, in February and March 1998; 3) Calls and technical meetings with experts held in March and June 1998; 4) Institutional revisions and interventions in May and July 1998; 5) Final text published in October 1998; and 6) Dissemination and monitoring in 1999.
Next, we will present the political and institutional context in France during the 1990s, based on a chronology of the document "Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques" (Program of the Third-Level Math Class) (MEN, 1998). Thus, documents that preceded this production or that have a direct connection with it were analyzed in order to, subsequently, systematize how this production occurred with regard to the definition of knowledge in teaching and training teachers who teach mathematics.
Political and institutional context in program development (1990s)
The 1990s in France represented a time of reorganization in educational policies, with institutional and legislative changes that directly impacted how curriculum documents were developed during that period.
With regard to this movement, it is important to highlight the alternation of Ministers of Education during the period: Lionel Jospin (1988-1992), Jack Lang (1992-1993), François Bayrou (1993-1997) and Claude Allègre (1997-2000), as presented by Frank and Mignaval (2002).
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was responsible for the Orientation Law of July 10, 1989 (France, 1989), which became known as the Jospin Law. This law established in its first article that “education is the first national priority” and that the public service should be organized for the benefit of students.
The following year, in 1990, the creation of the CNP represented a moment of considerable change in the curriculum development process in France. Until the 1970s, "in the absence of a comprehensive policy, reforms and reform projects of school subjects, their content, and their methods were carried out or developed in a scattered manner" (D' Enfert & Kahn, 2011, p. 14). Until the 1980s, the definition of school knowledge was associated with professional autonomy, supervised by the State and strongly mediated by unions and parity organizations6.
What began in the 1990s was a new mode of regulation: the managerial rationalization of public action, which made programs not only teaching benchmarks, but also instruments for the global and transversal coordination of disciplines, linked to the pursuit of greater efficiency and school decentralization (Clément, 2012).
The CNP, established by Decree No. 90-179 of February 23, 1990, is part of the curriculum reorganization movement initiated by the 1989 Orientation Law (Bret & Heurdier, 2019).
The Decree establishes in its article 1 that a National Curriculum Council (CNP) is created, under the supervision of the Minister of State, Minister of National Education, Youth and Sport (France, 1990). The purpose of the body, according to article 2, was to issue opinions and present proposals to the Minister of National Education "on the general design of curricula, the main objectives to be achieved, the suitability of curricula and subject areas to these objectives and their adaptation to the development of knowledge" (France, 1990, own translation).
Thus, it is understood that the role of the CNP was not to prepare the documents - this function was the responsibility of the disciplinary groups, as clarified in article 3: “the curricular projects, encompassing content and methodology, are developed within disciplinary, interdisciplinary or level groups, composed of representatives from the various levels of education” (França, 1990, own translation).
According to Article 5, the CNP was composed of “twenty-two members, selected for their competence by the Minister and appointed by decree” (France, 1990), with five-year terms, renewable once.
Heurdier (2019) presents the composition of the CNP from 1990 to 2005. The group was composed of university professors from different areas, the inspector general, secondary school teachers, school principals, researchers, and representatives of associations. This information provides clues as to who the possible reviewers of the curriculum programs of that time might be.
The creation of the CNP is not explained solely by the official instruments that established it, but also by a broader political and intellectual context. According to D' Enfert et al. (2019, p. 36),
The creation of the CNP was a political decision: to deliberately remove the general inspectorate, which was looked down upon by Claude Allègre, then advisor to Lionel Jospin, but also the associations of specialists and the unions, while at the same time returning power to the academics.
In this sense, Heurdier (2019, p. 13) highlights that “the emergence of the CNP is the culmination of reflections and initiatives undertaken since the beginning of the 1980s, especially commissions made to prestigious academics”.
In relation to the context of the time, Raulin (2006) also argues that the transformations that occurred in the second half of the 20th century (such as the extension of compulsory schooling, the need for constant updating of content and the incorporation of new subjects) destabilized the consensus that existed regarding school programs.
One of the CNP's actions related to the production of curricular programs was the writing of the Charter des programs published in the Bulletin Officiel (BO) de l'Éducation Nationale in 1992 (MEN, 1992). The CNP presented the principles that should be considered during the development of the programs, the contents, what should be included (objectives, knowledge and skills), the complementary documents, the purposes and the dissemination. The process of developing the programs took on new directions with the CNP. However, as Raulin (2006, p. 5) points out, some aspects were not altered:
The programs continued to be written by specialists in each discipline, in a very restricted system where schedules, traditions, and the wishes of the faculty were mixed together.... In the end, a mathematics program remained a mathematics program… to the great satisfaction of the mathematics teachers…; the same happened in all disciplines.
The following section presents other actors and institutions that were not part of the CNP membership list, but which were involved in the production of the curriculum documents. In addition, a discussion is presented on the various aspects related to the process of producing the Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques (MEN, 1998).
The production process of the Programme de la Classe de Troisième de Mathématiques (1997-1999)
The Programme de la classe de troisième des collèges (MEN, 1998), encompassed all disciplines and was published on October 15, 1998 in the Official Gazette. This document was legally grounded in a set of laws, decrees, and opinions that legitimized its adoption7. Official publications, when used in historical research, "constitute an important source of a normative character," as they "regulate the different aspects of the school institution" (Charmasson, 2005, p. 159).
The aforementioned document establishes that the new programs would apply from 1999 onwards, revoking previous provisions; and assigns responsibility for their implementation to the Director of School Education (MEN, 1998). Furthermore, it clarifies: “this decree and its annexes will also be published in the collège do Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique... also available at regional and departmental centers for educational documentation”8 (MEN, 1998, p. 3), making it clear that the dissemination of the document would occur beyond the BO.
It is worth noting that the BO de l'Éducation Nationale is the official publication of the Ministry of Education in France, which disseminates administrative acts such as decrees, ordinances, circulars, and other normative texts relating to educational policies applicable throughout French territory9.
In the preceding excerpt, it is possible to understand the logic behind the dissemination of this program after its completion: first, the regulatory program is published in the Official Bulletin; then, it is disseminated through the National Council for the Defense of Public Policies (CNDP) with the distribution of the booklet. The curriculum consists of three stages: the program; and finally, the pedagogical implementation takes place through the livret d' accompanyment (companion booklet). These documents represent the dissemination stage of the process of developing this normative document. But what happens behind the scenes of this production? What processes precede these official publications? Who participated? What were the debates and tensions? What were the main changes in the project until the final version? Who were the experts and agents responsible for the knowledge systematized in the final version? What elements reveal the dynamics of power, negotiation, and interference? These questions are discussed below based on a process of reconstructing the stages of development of the Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques.
Drafting, first version and national consultation (1997-early 1998)
One of the selected documents was the program draft, which includes information about its publication in the Official Gazette on December 11, 1997, for national consultation. The section concerning the subject of Mathematics was distributed across eight pages, and it presented the program and its objectives; it explained the content, involving geometric and numerical work, data organization and management, and functions (all with information on content, required skills, and comments). This first version represented not only a preliminary organization of the document but also materialized an initial selection of the knowledge and skills considered legitimate for teaching mathematics in the third grade (troisième).
Dominique Raulin10, a mathematics professor and former member of the CNP, sheds light on the behind-the-scenes process of curriculum document production in France during this historical moment. The process begins when...
The minister or their representative decides that a new curriculum should be developed. The process is jointly overseen by the CNP, at the scientific level, and by the Direction de l'enseignement. scolaire [emphasis added] (DESCO), at the administrative level. They request an academic to preside over the drafting process. The academic forms a group of experts. (Raulin, 2006, p. 22, own translation)
According to Raulin 's explanation (2006), the CNP acted as a mediator in the drafting process, representing the scientific field; and DESCO11 as an administrative representative, linked to the state field. The drafting was the responsibility of a group of experts chaired by an academic, also representing the scientific field.
This configuration illustrates the power dynamics within the production process, in which experts had relative autonomy and depended on the demands of other entities. However, this configuration partially changes with the publication of the project for national consultation, as academics, unions, professional associations, and professors began to provide their opinions on the proposal.
In the context of this consultation, the Document d'Accompagnement du Programme de Troisieme en Mathematiques12, here is referred to as a supporting document, published on January 14, 1998. The document contained 15 pages and provided guidance on the application of the mathematics program. The publication of the accompanying document can also be identified as an opening for input from other stakeholders, which can, at the same time, be interpreted as an attempt by the administration to direct the implementation and perhaps the interpretation of the proposal. This movement reveals a tension between openness to consultation and maintaining institutional control over the conduct of the curriculum process.
Opinions, debates and synthesis (March 1998)
During the period encompassing the months of February and March 1998, academic opinions and summaries regarding the curriculum program project were identified.
On March 19th, the Syndicat National des Enseignements de Second Degré (SNES) was issued, signed by Denis Paget and Hélène Latger. The report considered the program relevant and coherent, but included observations on: workload; definition of the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and equipment; greater coherence with the core cycle; and the need for better teaching methods (demonstrations, place of conjectures or theorems, examples) and teacher training. There was an emphasis on demonstration, literal calculus, and work with vectors, rotations, and non-affiliate functions; and criticism of the lack of clarity in arithmetic and statistics and the weakening of analytical geometry (removal of equations of lines and distances between points). It also raised questions about the exclusivity of substitution in systems, the omission of percentage variations, and inconsistencies regarding vector equality.
The unsuitability of the proposed program's workload, as well as the use of resources and training, also appears in the report written by Marie-Hélène Peyrache, representing the Regional Pedagogical Inspection of Mathematics of the Académie de Créteil, highlighting the opinion of consulted schools. This report contained information from the recipient - which, in this case, would be DESCO A4 - addressed specifically to Mr. Raulin (Dominique Raulin). This detail clarifies the fact that the opinions issued by the schools were processed at an academic level by regional educational inspectors, who forwarded the results to the school administration of the collège and the lycée (Raulin, 1996).
During this period, summaries of the academies' opinions were also issued. The 118-page document listed and compiled the academies that issued opinions. The academies' opinions,13 more broadly, highlighted, among other aspects, that the program developed was relevant, but too dense for a 4-hour weekly workload, requiring an additional 1 hour for group work and the use of technology. They pointed to the need for accompanying documents with activity sequences and interdisciplinary coordination. Regarding implementation conditions, they highlighted deficiencies in equipment or software and in teacher training, especially for the use of spreadsheets and graphs.
These reports elucidate immediate concerns not only regarding the workload and coherence of the program, but also the conditions of implementation, including equipment shortages and insufficient teacher training for the use of technological resources. This critique engages with broader analyses of the period, as Abboud (2024) points out, highlighting that, in the 1980s and 1990s, the institutional belief prevailed that the simple introduction of digital technologies would guarantee improvements in mathematics teaching, disregarding the need for longer-term and more contextualized teacher training.
Adjustments were suggested regarding statistics (measures of dispersion), proportionality (compound quantities), trigonometry (scope), and arithmetic. Criticisms were raised concerning the removal of line equations, alongside requests for greater clarity regarding systems of equations and geometric transformations (vectors, translations, and rotations). The study by Moyon et al. (2025) clarifies that geometric transformations were introduced at the collège level-for students aged 11 to 14-in September 1971.
On March 23, 1998, the opinion of APMEP, represented by Jean-Pierre Richeton, was issued through a letter addressed to Minister Claude Allègre. The document expressed the Commission Nationale des Collèges dissatisfaction. The document criticizes the APMEP schools for the lack of consultation with specialists during the development of the mathematics program for the third grade. It presents five points of criticism, which include: lack of clear instructions regarding principles and low participation of pedagogical teams; volume of content requiring increased teaching hours and unequal conditions for reflection among schools; need for clarity on required competencies; lack of a program for one of the grades; and ongoing teacher training. Finally, it requests a meeting with the Ministry to discuss these issues in more detail.
APMEP's criticisms engage with the broader debate of the 1990s surrounding the notion of competence, which inspired the rewriting of curricula in several countries, including France (Perrenoud, 1999). This did not mean abandoning knowledge, but rather articulating it with educational goals. In this sense, the lack of clarity in curricula relates to the needs of the knowledge mobilized in the classroom, since it occurs "through exercise and reflective practice, in situations that offer the opportunity to mobilize knowledge, transpose it and combine it" (Perrenoud, 1999, p. 15).
Considering the opinions mentioned above, four main tensions are noted. The first refers to the relationship between the extent of the content and the available teaching hours; the second, to the selection and prioritization of mathematical knowledge, especially in geometry, statistics, arithmetic, and proportionality; the third refers to the conditions for implementing the program, involving equipment, use of technologies, supporting documents, and teacher training; and the fourth is related to the participation of teachers, unions, and associations in the development process.
Among these, disputes over the selection of content and the feasibility of its implementation were the most directly related to the program's design, as they guided subsequent revisions on topics such as vectors, literal calculus, and statistics. Criticisms regarding participation and the clarity of competencies, however, demonstrate that the disputes were not limited to what to teach, but also encompassed who could intervene in that definition.
Calls and technical meetings with experts (March-June 1998)
The opinions mentioned in the previous item were forwarded to the GTD members to assist in the project evaluation and review meetings. Between March and May 1998, DESCO A4, through the Bureau du Content des Enseignements, under the coordination of Dominique Raulin14, formalized the participation of group members through letters15 of invitation and attendance certificates. These documents illustrate the bureaucratic and logistical aspects of the negotiation and revision of the curriculum project, allowing us to identify who the invited experts were, how the meetings were conducted, and what role was assigned to them within the official process.
The GTD brought together representatives from different professional backgrounds and with diverse experiences: inspectors, university professors, teacher trainers, and primary and secondary school teachers. Among those invited were Paul Attali, Antoine Bodin, François Pluvinage, and Guy Renault, and their role was not limited to issuing individual opinions, as they acted as mediators among the pronouncements of academia, unions, and professional associations and the administrative demands of the Ministry. In this process, they contributed to selecting which criticisms would be incorporated, reformulated, or left out of the later version.
This contribution from the experts did not occur in isolation, as the work was linked to a demand from the Ministry and was submitted to evaluations by the CNP, the CSE, and other bodies responsible for approval. Thus, the expertise resulting from the experts' actions was a collective activity aimed at addressing a problem defined by the administration.
This dynamic is similar to the characterization by Hofstetter and Schneuwly (2021) when they state that the experts participated “in a procedure that is somehow external to them” (p. 20), a procedure that was not part of their routine work activities. The expertise developed by them meets the elements outlined by Hofstetter and Schneuwly: in this case, the demand came from the actions of the CNP, interested in reviewing the program for the third year of high school; the requesting party was the Ministry, through the CNP, for DESCO; the experts were the different agents summoned (two inspectors, two university professors, two teacher trainers, and two basic education teachers) to compose the mathematics GTD; the expertise process occurred in technical meetings and exchanges of opinions that led to the reworking of the text; and the result was the normative version published in the Official Gazette in October 1998 and the dissemination documents published in 1999.
Institutional reviews and interventions (May-July 1998)
From May 1998 onwards, the curriculum development process involved formal revisions of the project and institutional interventions from different bodies.
On May 12, 1998, Paul Attali, representing the General Inspectorate of Mathematics, forwarded to Dominique Raulin a new version of the program, already incorporating modifications resulting from the GTD's technical meetings. The document indicated the changes - with additions, rewrites, and deletions - in relation to the previous text; and was accompanied by annexes from the 1997 national consultation project. At this stage of the elaboration process, the GTD and the General Inspectorate assumed a mediating position, systematically addressing in a concrete way the tensions between external suggestions and criticisms and the group's choices.
The document was then evaluated by the CNP, which on June 16, 1998, conditioned its favorable opinion on the removal of the "proportionality of the additions" and the vectors, considering them excessively complex for the central cycle, proposing instead a reinforcement of the literal calculation and data management. This moment, in which the CNP conditioned approval on the revision of certain contents, suggests a change in its position in the process: from an instance of scientific monitoring to an instance of direct intervention in the definition of the document's knowledge. An action that impacted the relative autonomy of the drafting group.
The minutes from the meeting of June 23, 1998, recorded new discussions about the relevance of introducing the vectors, while the CNP's final opinion of June 24 praised the clarity of the text but pointed out weaknesses regarding the hierarchical organization of content and the definition of the teaching load. The observations on content and school time illustrate a dispute between the disciplinary field (hierarchical organization and legitimacy of knowledge) and the professional field of teaching (implementation conditions and pedagogical viability).
A few days later, on July 1, 1998, the CSE introduced an amendment reintroducing vector notation and vector addition into the Travaux. The inclusion of geometric concepts was justified as an introduction to vector calculus. The intervention of the CSE altered the recommendation defended by the CNP and reinstated content that had been questioned. The dispute surrounding vectors highlights a shift in the balance of power: although the CNP had scientific legitimacy, its position was not sufficient to finalize the decision. Another official body also managed to interfere in the final wording of the program. Thus, the systematized knowledge resulted from negotiations between what was considered legitimate for the disciplinary field of mathematics, feasible for the administration to organize, and what was achievable by professionals in the field of teaching.
These were the last records found that preceded the date of publication of the program. Regarding this, Raulin (2006, p. 23) also clarifies that, “with the reasoned opinion of the CNP and the vote of the CSE, the Minister decides whether or not to sign the decree”. The final decision, conditioned on the Minister's signature, allows for a broader understanding of the power of institutions, consultative bodies, and experts in the curriculum process. These agents were able to propose, revise, and negotiate the document, but they did not have full autonomy to define it independently, since the final validation remained linked to the Ministry. The Minister's signature represented the formalization of expertise, which was only validated after “going through a process of back and forth between elaboration, application, testing, feedback, re-elaboration, and other stages” (Bertini & Silva, 2023a, p. 31) mediated by tensions between the fields.
Final text (October 1998)
The drafting process culminated on October 15, 1998, with the publication of the Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques in the Official Gazette (MEN, 1998). At that moment, the knowledge negotiated and systematized by the GTD members and validated by the consultative bodies was consolidated into a normative document that became legally binding for the entire French school system. This fact illustrates the role of the expert, whose task is to systematize knowledge in order to contribute to the resolution of the practical problem that originated their appointment, the dissemination of which often occurs through the production of official guiding documents (Bertini & Silva, 2023b).
Dissemination and monitoring (1999)
The following year, the program gained new forms of circulation. In 1999, the CNDP published Livret 1 - Programmes de 3ᵉ, bringing together in a single volume all the official programs of the troisième series. The document did not introduce changes, but facilitated access to the normative versions of each subject, organized sequentially and intended for consultation by teachers and schools.
Livret 3 - Accompagnement des programmes de 3ᵉ, was published, and it played a pedagogical role. It explicitly states the program, details what should be taught, and presents examples of practices and methodological guidelines. As Raulin (2006, p. 69) points out, "the accompanying document should be a working tool for the teacher, to which he brings the necessary clarifications ... It explains the program, specifies what should be taught".
An analysis of the program's production process shows that the normative publication of October 1998 represented only the culmination of a journey marked by successive versions, national consultations, technical meetings, opinions from the National Curriculum Council (CNP), and amendments from the School Council (CSE). The final text consolidated the knowledge systematized by the experts, but its dissemination in 1999, through the Program and Monitoring Livrets, demonstrates that French curriculum policy articulated both the normative and pedagogical dimensions. Considering this itinerary allows us to understand that school programs are historical products, traversed by field disputes, institutional negotiations, and implementation strategies, and not merely official documents in their final version.
Final remarks
The Programme de la classe de troisième de Mathématiques (1997-1999) is the result of a development process that involved consultations, opinions, technical meetings, and institutional interventions. Based on the 1989 Law and the establishment of the CNP (National Curriculum Research Council), its production process shows that the curriculum does not correspond only to the final published document, but results from choices, negotiations, and disputes between different agents and bodies.
The definition of teaching knowledge and references for teacher training emerges from the interaction and tensions between the fields of the state, the disciplinary fields, and the professional field of teaching, mediated within the framework of the Mathematics Teaching and Development Group (GTD) by its experts, bodies, and institutions. those summoned to participate in the process.
The process of examining the documents behind the scenes allowed us to identify how decisions about content (e.g., vectors, literal calculus, and statistics) were subject to dispute and rebalancing between CNP and CSE, and how DESCO coordinated the process via GTD. The analysis illustrated that the constitution of knowledge involved movements of selection, withdrawal, reinsertion, hierarchization, and adaptations.
In addition to content aspects, other tensions arose, such as the definition of the teaching hours, considered insufficient given the density of the program; the search for greater coherence with the central cycle, prior to the third year of high school, and clarity regarding the required competencies; and the need for better teaching methods, involving demonstrations, the use of conjecture, examples, and resources. Reports also highlighted the limitations of implementation due to a lack of equipment and software, as well as the need for enhanced teacher training, especially in the use of technology.
APMEP, in particular, criticized the low participation of pedagogical teams and insisted on the importance of continuing education. This observation elucidates that curriculum development was marked by tensions that were not limited to the text, but also extended to the teaching conditions and teacher professionalization of the time. Thus, the references for teacher training were not constituted solely in specific training documents. They also appeared in discussions about the necessary conditions for teachers to interpret and implement the program.
Discussions involving aspects related to content and workload, as well as the place of conjectures and proofs, highlight the centrality of the mathematical disciplinary field in this type of production. The inclusion of vector notation and vector addition, for example, is justified within the scope of mathematics itself, the organization of academic mathematics, as an introduction to vector calculus. Similarly, the proposal to increase the workload is justified by the amount of content to be included and maintained in the program. This focus on content reinforces the centrality of the mathematical disciplinary field in the production. This centrality is related to the prioritization of mathematics specialists and university professors, representatives of the academic field, in the process.
Despite this centrality, especially in the reports, indications and questions related to the professional field of teaching were identified, such as requests for didactic guidance and concerns about teacher training. These aspects are systematized in the dissemination and monitoring phase, for example, with the production of Livret 3, which assumed a pedagogical function and presented examples of practice and methodological guidelines. This reinforces the idea of unequal participation between the fields: representatives of the disciplinary field and the State occupied more direct positions in the selection and validation of content; and the demands of the professional field of teaching appeared prominently in the reports and documents intended for the implementation of the program.
The original contribution of this work lies in the reconstruction of the inner workings of the Programme de Mathématiques de troisième. Based on diverse documentation (opinions, letters, meeting records, and normative texts), it articulates three French collections. Furthermore, it systematizes stages and analytical categories that lead to a periodization of what occurred in this productive process, identifying actors, instances, and tensions, treating the curriculum as a negotiated historical product and offering a mode of analysis that can be used in future research.
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