This study focuses on joint attention in small-group learning during lessons in order to analyze the joint action microscopically. In this study, “joint attention” refers to the phenomenon in which two individuals gaze at the same object connectively, which can be an apparatus for microscopic analysis of the relation between communication and positional relation. To contribute to the validity of this concept as an apparatus for research on small-group learning, this study aimed to clarify the function of joint attention in a specific case of social studies in junior high school. The analysis of several acts based on positional relation revealed the followings. 1) Joint attention promoted thinking about the educational contents of the materials on the desks and allowed it to be generated to intercompare how to think mediated by physical things. 2) The function has some important moments, such as the act of pointing, the light/ sound relation, and the identification of the physical things.
