Problematising researcher-respondent relations through exploration of communicative stance

To what extent and in what ways should researchers share their views with research participants during ethnographic fieldwork? This article discusses the author’s experience adopting different communicative stances with respondents in the context of an ethnographic study of the enactment of the English National Literacy Strategy in a “failing” primary school. A commonly accepted communicative stance in ethnography, according to which the researcher avoids disclosure of his or her own views, is problematised; and the potential advantages and disadvantages of feedback as a research tool are explored

Changing Classroom Practice through the English National Literacy Strategy: A Micro-Interactional Perspective

How and why is national policy translated into interactions between teachers and pupils? This article examines the enactment of the English National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in a case study of two consecutive Year 6 literacy lessons, which are drawn from a year long ethnographic study of the NLS in one school. Although the teacher taught directly from and adhered closely to the prescribed materials, curricular contents were recontextualised into the interactional genres habitual in that classroom, and the open questions that constituted the primary aim of the lesson were suppressed. In explaining these patterns of enactment, I supplement analysis of teacher knowledge and policy support with consideration of conditions of teacher engagement with the curricular materials and the durability of interactional genres, rooted in pupil collusion and habitus

Discussion Formats for Addressing Emotions: Implications for Social-Emotional Learning

Scholars of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) advocate discussion as a promising instructional method yet rarely specify how such discussions should be conducted. Facilitating classroom discussions is highly challenging, particularly about emotions. Furthermore, the SEL literature contains contradictory discursive imperatives; it typically overlooks the gaps between students’ and teachers’ emotional codes and how these codes are shaped by culture, class, and gender. The current study explores different ways in which teachers facilitate classroom dialogue about emotions. We analyze data drawn from a two-year ethnographic study conducted as part of a design-based implementation research project aimed at fostering productive dialogue in primary language arts classrooms, looking in particular at two lessons centered around a story about crying. We found two different interactional genres for discussions about emotions: (1) inclusive emotional dialogue, in which students share emotions experienced in their everyday lives; (2) emotional inquiry, in which students explore emotions, their expressions, and their social meanings. Both types of discussion generated informative exchanges about students’ emotions. Yet the discussions also put the teacher and students in challenging positions, often related to the need to navigate between contradictory discursive norms and emotional codes

Controversies and consensus in research on dialogic teaching and learning

Scholarly interest in dialogic pedagogy and classroom dialogue is multi-disciplinary and draws on a variety of theoretical frameworks. On the positive side, this has produced a rich and varied body of research and evidence. However, in spite of a common interest in educational dialogue and learning through dialogue, cross-disciplinary engagement with each other’s work is rare. Scholarly discussions and publications tend to be clustered in separate communities, each characterized by a particular type of research questions, aspects of dialogue they focus on, type of evidence they bring to bear, and ways in which standards for rigor are constructed. In the present contribution, we asked four leading scholars from different research traditions to react to four provocative statements that were deliberately designed to reveal areas of consensus and disagreement[1]. Topic-wise, the provocations related to theoretical foundations, methodological assumptions, the role of teachers, and issues of inclusion and social class, respectively. We hope that these contributions will stimulate cross- and trans-disciplinary discussions about dialogic pedagogy research and theory.[1] The authors of this article are five scholars, the dialogic provocateur and the four respondents. The order of appearance of the authors was determined alphabetically