Managing knowledge in parent-teacher conferences :participants\u2019 resources to pursue different assessment trajectories = La gestione della conoscenza nei colloqui genitori-insegnanti : risorse comunicative e traiettorie valutative

Abstract

As institutional interactions, parent-teacher conferences are the \u201ctypical\u201d milieu where teachers try to enact their professional oriented identity. This paper reports data from a mother-teachers conference where two teachers talk with a mother about the school achievements of her gifted child. Data were analyzed following the multimodal Conversation Analysis techniques. The authors advance that, as the interacting parts talk about the child, these social actors follow two different assessment trajectories. While teachers pursue a no-problem trajectory, constructing the \u201cchild-at-school\u201d as a relatively non-problematic pupil, the mother pursues a problem trajectory by framing the troublesome \u201cchild-at-home\u201d. Analyses illustrate how the mother\u2019s communicative strategies allow her to act as a \u201cfinal arbiter\u201d of the conference, demanding and getting a customized education for her child