Didactics and the culture of school disciplines: The case of French language arts as taught in France

This article first examines didactics from an epistemological perspective. Didactic analysis grasps knowledge as something circulated and/or transmitt ed. It is distinguished from sociological and psychological approaches to t he learning act that legitimize the sociology of education, and from cognit ive approaches. Modifying the learner's individual knowledge so that it conforms to institu tional knowledge is a scholastic goal that, in our view, defines the field of didactic research. The second part of the article proposes answers to these questions: What is the status of the notions taught by the discipline? How are these notions constituted? What is the role of values and knowledge in school exercises a nd school goals? And what is to be understood by literary culture?