This paper presents the interest of the “instrumental conflict” concept, developed by Marquet (2005), to understand the relationship between didactics and classroom management in the training programs of math teachers. It also shows some results of a survey, conducted in 2008 among pre-service teachers in the Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada), revealing a perceived gap between both domains. However, those two domains are closely related during teaching in the classroom. The paper also presents a plan to better understand and improve the situation. Cooperation between classroom management and didactics specialists is highlighted.

This paper presents the interest of the “instrumental conflict” concept, developed by Marquet (2005), to understand the relationship between didactics and classroom management in the training programs of math teachers. It also shows some results of a survey, conducted in 2008 among pre-service teachers in the Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada), revealing a perceived gap between both domains. However, those two domains are closely related during teaching in the classroom. The paper also presents a plan to better understand and improve the situation. Cooperation between classroom management and didactics specialists is highlighted.