The Unfinalizable Learner - Lichnost’, AI, and the Cyborg Ontology of Uniqueness: A Critical Commentary on Matusov (2026)

This critical commentary responds to Matusov’s (2026) “Against Equity: Toward a Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice” by pursuing three interconnected lines of argument. First, I support and extend Matusov’s provocation that the equity model functions ideologically, drawing an explicit parallel to Marx’s critique of religion as the opium of the people to expose how the remedy mystifies the structures that produce suffering, including the unexamined subject position of those who appoint themselves distributors of educational justice. Second, I argue that Matusov’s invocation of lichnost’ (личность) needs to be placed at the heart of education for a uniqueness approach, grounded in Bakhtin’s (1984) ontology of the once-occurrent event of being. Third, I argue that AI, as a new cultural phenomenon, renders the equity apparatus obsolete by dissolving the scarcity conditions on which it depends. Also, the emerging human-AI hybrid, understood through Haraway’s (1985) cyborg concept, extends lichnost’ into a new form: the cyborg uniqueness of a being whose becoming is co-authored by human and non-human intelligence

The Fluid Manual: A Polyphonic Alternative in Foreign Language Education

This empirical study explores a dialogic alternative to the conventional, fixed foreign language textbook by introducing the concept of a fluid manual—a pedagogical resource co-constructed dynamically through classroom interactions between teacher and adult learners. Grounded in Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and heteroglossia, the fluid manual embraces the multiplicity of voices and meaning-making processes inherent in language use, positioning each lesson as a unique and collaborative event. Rejecting monologic, pre-determined content, this approach enables learners and teachers to shape the curriculum in real-time, using evolving questions, answers, and reflections as the core instructional material. Inspired by recent developments in digital collaborative logbooks, this intervention was implemented in two adult English language courses in Portugal, targeting absolute and advanced beginners. Through qualitative analysis of participant opinions and perceptions, the study reveals that the dialogic classes resulting in the fluid manual significantly enhanced learner motivation, autonomy, and engagement, while fostering a deeper connection to the learning process. Participants reported feeling more empowered and invested in their learning, attributing this to the co-authored nature of the content and the space for their voices to emerge and be transformed dialogically. The findings suggest that textbook-free teaching grounded in dialogism offers a viable and impactful alternative in language education, particularly for adult learners, by creating learning environments that are socially responsive, psychologically rich, and pedagogically inclusive. We do, however, acknowledge several constraints to the implementation of dialogism as a language teaching and learning approach, most of them related to the pre-established relationship between teacher and students in the conventional educational institutions and the objective oral expression limitations in the foreign language from the learners’ part. We conclude by affirming the educational potential of materials and methods that privilege interaction over transmission, and that recognize language learning as a fundamentally heteroglossic and co-authored process

Dialogic Coordination Through the Compassionate Impactful Communication Cycle: Towards Realising Matusov’s (2026) Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice

In this commentary, I engage with Eugene Matusov’s (2026) “Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice” to critique standardisation enacted as non-dialogic sameness that marginalises students’ perspectives, values, and self-authored goals. In response, I propose a dialogic coordination framework that supports students in articulating and pursuing their own educational trajectories through sustained, critical dialogue with educators and educational institutions. To operationalise this approach, I introduce the Compassionate Impactful Communication Cycle as a practical mechanism for facilitating empathetic, reflective, and co-creative dialogue. Drawing on dialogic theory, Self-Determination Theory, and critical thinking frameworks, the Cycle is designed to surface participants’ values, goals, and concerns, enabling the co-construction of meaningful and context-responsive educational pathways. Extending Matusov’s framework, I argue that even in vocational and training contexts, educational endpoints should remain open to dialogue. Within this perspective, equity is situational, aiming to enable students to realise their self-authored goals. The constitutive view of communication holds that society, organisations, and their policies, values, and practices are constituted in and through communication. Aligned with this view, I introduce a dialogic framework to constitute the Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice. I offer dialogic coordination as both a conceptual and practical contribution and invite further dialogue about its possibilities and limits across diverse educational contexts

Against Equity: Toward a Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice

This conceptual paper challenges the dominance of the equity model of social justice in education by arguing that it is fundamentally anti-educational, reducing students to recipients of standardized outcomes and eroding their authorial agency and ownership of learning. Instead, the author proposes a radical alternative: the uniqueness model of educational justice, which affirms learners’ rights to self-education, self-direction, and democratic self-governance. Grounded in a sociocultural approach and democratic schooling practices, this model views education as a process of personal meaning-making rather than as the standardization of learning outcomes. Through critical analysis and a richly narrated case study of the Gaga Ball Game Corporation at a democratic school, the paper illustrates how authentic education arises when students define and evaluate their own learning in dialogue with others. The uniqueness model rejects the bureaucratic, totalized educational paternalism and moral intrusiveness of equity frameworks and instead champions intrinsic motivation, learner autonomy, and diversity of educational goals. In doing so, it reframes educational justice not as sameness of outcomes but as the cultivation of human dignity through authorial learning pathways

The Effectiveness of Computer-Supported Collaborative Dialogue in Schools

Effectiveness has received bad press in Dialogic Education as it generally points to improvements in a stable educational context, while dialogic pedagogies aim at educational change. The present paper examines effectiveness in senses that are compatible with both the educational system and the aims of Dialogic Education. Institutional and organizational constraints limit the implementation of practices such as peer-led computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) discussions in schools. In an intervention that handled these constraints, we compared the outcomes of small-group peer-led CSCL discussions around texts and teacher-led whole-class face-to-face discussions around the same texts. The outcomes compared were individual historical essays. We relied on a methodological tool developed by Monte-Sano (2016) to measure two qualitative aspects of students\u27 essays: argumentation and historical reasoning. Two groups of high-school students (N1 = 24; N2 = 21) participated in discussions around historical texts. The second author, who was the group\u27s teacher, facilitated a discussion with the first group. The second group was divided into small groups, which interacted through a CSCL tool. There was no significant difference in the quality of essays written after participation in a peer-led dialogue through a CSCL tool, compared to those written after participation in a teacher-led face-to-face discussion – in terms of either argumentation or historical reasoning. However, the students who participated in peer-led collaborative dialogue did reveal distinctive epistemological insights. These results have had implications for the Ministry of Education\u27s policy, which recently recognized this measure of essay quality as part of the history matriculation exam. In addition, the analysis of the peer-led CSCL group discussions suggests that a dialogical space was created. The intervention was thus effective in terms of standardized learning outcomes, dissemination of new dialogic practices, and ontological-dialogical changes

Dialogicity in Korean Early Childhood Teachers\u27 Suda Network-Professional Learning Communities (Suda N-PLC)

This study examines suda (수다), a culturally specific form of open-ended conversational exchange, as practiced among early childhood educators in Oju, South Korea. While informal teacher dialogues have been explored in other cultural contexts, few studies have investigated suda as a dialogic practice with distinctive cultural features and professional learning potential. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic field notes, and selected excerpts from suda session transcripts, the research adopts an emic perspective to analyze how Oju participants perceived the nature and value of suda. Using a grounded research approach informed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), the analysis identified six interrelated dimensions of suda: dialogicity, emergence, spontaneity, non-hierarchy, openness, and emotional support and empathy. Findings show that suda provided a space for teachers to reflect on and reimagine their practice, often leading to tangible professional transformations such as restructuring classroom schedules, enhancing documentation practices, and fostering greater openness to peer collaboration. By situating suda in relation to other culturally rooted dialogic traditions, this study contributes to dialogic pedagogy scholarship by illuminating how culturally situated informal conversations can cultivate professional growth, strengthen collegial bonds, and nurture democratic participation within early childhood education communities

Why do students choose the option of the Open Syllabus in a conventional university?

The purpose of the presented mixed qualitative-quantitative research is to examine college students’ diverse reasons for choosing the Open Syllabus, which allows students in a conventional university to define their goals for education, curriculum, instruction, assessment, ways of learning, and so on—what traditionally constitutes “Self-Directed Education.” Most of those students articulated their interest in self-education, which consists of self-directed and responsive education

“They go hand in hand”: Dialogic pedagogy and linguistic belonging in two elementary classrooms

Elementary school children bring a rich diversity of language to classrooms, a richness that often goes undervalued in educational settings in which teachers feel they must and do emphasize dominant ways of using English. The ways in which teachers interact with children about their language use can influence the linguistic belonging of children from nondominant linguistic backgrounds—their sense of being loved, valued, included, and recognized in positive ways for how they use and understand language. This work addresses connections between dialogic pedagogy and the belonging of multilingual children in two California, English-dominant elementary classrooms. The manuscript centers on the following questions: (1) How did teachers view dialogic instruction and plan dialogically? (2) What did dialogic instruction look like when enacted in these two classrooms? (3) How did dialogic instruction–including professional care and love for multilingual children–relate to the linguistic belonging of multilingual children in these two classrooms? The study concludes that these teachers saw dialogic instruction and the belonging of multilingual children as connected and that they worked hard to find space for dialogic instruction within scripted and district-planned curricula. During dialogic instruction, teachers accepted answers that were not conventionally correct, honored and demonstrated care for students and embraced multiple, diverse ways of expressing answers from their students, including affirming multilingual student language use that did not conform to dominant English standards. Dialogic pedagogy contributed to the belonging of multilingual children in these two classrooms

Dialogic interactions among multi-professionals in the context of online sessions: The use of Mederu to understand Moyatto experiences

This study discusses professional love in the context of online sessions where healthcare professionals employ a dialogic framework to reflect on or explore how discomfort arises in their interprofessional practices. The goal of this study is to provide frontline practitioners and educators with insights into what constitutes professional love in dialogue and to suggest avenues of support for the development of continuous health profession education through such dialogue. We took a reflective writing approach based on observations of dialogic practices. This essay represents a reflective writing conducted by the first author as he explored, in his own practice, love in dialogic interactions among professionals in online sessions. He established a Study Group in 2014, aiming to improve interprofessional collaboration through dialogue on Moyatto, which is defined as emotional, cognitive, and physical distress experienced when individuals face conflicting communication with people who have different viewpoints and interests. We describe actual events that occurred in sessions and interactions that continue even without direct conversations after the conclusion of the session. The results indicate that the first step for professionals to experience love in their professional practice is to share the Moyatto experiences without any quid pro quo in response to the other’s narrative. Even after the session\u27s conclusion, the participants continued to feel something that could not be verbalized because of the other’s alienness. Therefore, the interactions comprising the exchanging of Moyatto experiences can continue even without direct conversations, and such experiences can motivate participants to inquire about perspectives hitherto unknown to them. We postulate that this process can be regarded as Mederu, a Japanese sense of loving used by people to willingly observe and care for the diverse elements of others or materials. This transitional learning that transcends professional and disciplinary boundaries may need to recur at various points in a professional’s career, requiring more sustainable and stable educational resources

An educational program addressing tense intercultural communication between Japanese and Chinese students: A Bakhtinian perspective on dialogue and love

In today’s culturally diverse world, the ability to engage in effective communication with individuals from different backgrounds has become increasingly significant. In particular, overcoming emotional resistance when interacting with individuals from culturally distinct backgrounds is an important educational challenge. In this paper, we discuss the significance of educational practices that facilitate productive intercultural communication, drawing inspiration from the perspectives of the Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin, who valued “dialogues” between “others” who hold conflicting ideas about the same subject. Bakhtin valued the “outsideness” of others, recognizing it as a means to reveal the multifaceted nature of ideologies, which have been unquestionably accepted by individuals within the same cultural milieu. Additionally, he appreciated the positive atmosphere that could develop between speakers, which plays a key role in alleviating the emotional distress associated with reacting to perspectives from alien cultural backgrounds as a significant factor in promoting meaningful dialogues. Based on Bakhtin’s insights, we designed an experimental educational approach to mediate conflicting ideas between Japanese and Chinese university students by alleviating the emotional distress they experienced when faced with conflicting viewpoints. Thus, the research question of the present study is how we can promote participants’ critical investigations on each speaker’s conflictive cultural view and develop their abilities to bridge the gaps in culturally divided worldviews. After an analysis of these theories and empirical data, we comprehensively proposed strategies to enhance the quality of tense intercultural communication while discussing conflicting themes. Promoting positive emotions toward partners, consistent with the concept of “professional love” proposed in this special issue, is regarded as one of the most crucial elements of our educational approach