Argumentation and proving in multicultural classes: a linguistic-cultural approach with Chinese students

The paper explores, through different theoretical/experimental investigations, aparticular complex field of study such as the analysis of the teaching/learning phasesin a multicultural setting in class. Through a linguistic-cultural approach it is afurther close examination on the didactic thematic related to a possible comparisonbetween East and West and particularly between Chinese mathematical thought andItalian thought, in some particular aspects related to the phase of argumentation andproving. To carry out the research, we chose to investigate, in a qualitative andquantitative way, the behaviour of Chinese and Italian students of different ages(13-15 years old) attending the Secondary School of Palermo, on a number theoryproblem as pre-algebraic problem (“the game of prime numbers”).