Developing understanding of pupil feedback using Habermas’ notion of communicative action

The focus of this article is to explore the notion of pupil feedback and the possible ways in which it can be understood and developed using Jürgen Habermas’ theory of Communicative Action. The theoretical position adopted is framed within the concept of assessment for learning, and is particularly related to the notion of assessment as learning within AfL. Furthermore, the paper is located within a social constructivist perspective. Jürgen Habermas’ theory of Communicative Action enables us to recognise that feedback, and more importantly the interpretation of feedback, cannot be a one-way process. Without recognition of pupil interpretation, its very purpose (to alter the learning gap) is compromised. This paper offers new ways of exploring feedback, which recognise complexity and the importance of interpretation and relationships in shared negotiated communicative contexts. It further contributes to the ways in which assessment and learning are understood and intersect

Reading religion in Norwegian textbooks: are individual religions ideas or people?

Different religions are treated in different ways in Norwegian sixth form textbooks. We carried out an exhaustive content analysis of the chapters devoted to individual religions in textbooks for the Religion and Ethics course currently available in Norway, using rigorous indicators to code each word, image and question according to whether they were treated the religion as a set of ideas or a group of people. After adjusting for trends in the different kinds of data (word, image, question), we found that Buddhism and Christianity receive significantly more attention for their ideas than Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, which are treated more as people. This difference cannot be explained by the national syllabus or the particularities of the individual religions. The asymmetry also has implications for the pupils’ academic, moral and pedagogical agency for which teachers play a critical role in compensating.acceptedVersio

From Dialogue to Trialogue: A Sociocultural Learning Perspective on Classroom Interaction

Dialogues in multireligious public schools do not run smoothly by simply gathering a plural group of learners in the same classroom. Classroom studies show that many conversations go on in circles around provocative statements from a few students creating a debate to make the lesson pass quickly to avoid the teacher from teaching. The discussion in this article will be based in a sociocultural perspective on learning and addressing the teacher’s responsibility to facilitate the dialogue whether the degree of diversity she faces in Religious Education (RE) is high or low. Her task is to achieve a development of the dialogue from a repetitive exercise towards a learning experience. Dialogue is usually understood as an encounter between two persons exchanging views, in an oral dia-logue. The trialogue is defined by an intentional extension of the dialogue by introducing a mediating tool between the two persons, a third ‘voice’. The third voice might be a material artefact or a practical task. The mediating tool is a cultural entrenched tool which makes the dialogue more informed and creates a common ground for negotiation. The teacher is the one that sets up the rules for the dialogue in the classroom, creates a safe space, and chooses what educational material to give attention. There is a need to discuss some age specific strategies on how to facilitate this informed dialogue or trialogue during compulsory education in the ages of 6-15.Keywords: dialogical education, informed dialogue/ trialogue, multireligious- classrooms, RE-teaching, empirical educational practice, sociocultural learning theories, learning artefact