This study examines the relationship between teachers' beliefs and their practices at Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) in relation to the use of questioning. Data were collected from interviewing and observing Key Stage 2 teachers at four schools in the West of England. A Straussian approach to grounded theory is followed broadly in order to analyse the data. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, which suggested a mismatch between teachers' beliefs and practices in that teachers, in certain respects, (...) do less than they claim, the research revealed that teachers use a variety of skills during their teaching that they may not always be aware of. It is also argued that teachers do not share researchers' language to express the way they teach. (shrink)

Dialogic or dialogical education is an umbrella term that encompasses a myriad of different and at times conflicting approaches. As there is no agreed-upon definition of ‘dialogue’ (not that there is or should be one unified definition), and even fewer clear and systematic guidelines for application, researchers and practitioners in the DE field are faced with countless questions and dilemmas. My aim in this paper is therefore to offer some ideas for a general outline of how to employ systematic thinking (...) on DE. This outline can serve as a basis for the development of a methodological tool that can enable researchers and practitioners to think about and apply dialogical practices with greater clarity, coherency and consistency. Following a normatively oriented (rather than instrumental) systematic line of reasoning, this paper will begin by discussing the basic values of three central dialogical approaches and then move on to discuss more practical parameters that surpass strictly pedagogical and didactic concerns. (shrink)

This article takes a conceptual approach to an issue of pedagogical relevance—the presence of teaching and learning moments within educational environments. We suggest sources of philosophical confusions that design patterns for the classification and creation of typologies of classroom events. We identify three foundational assumptions with the way in which classroom events are analyzed: Describing a classroom event ; Devising a procedure for co-classifying events ; Repurposing decontextualized events to fit a preferred analytic model. Hitherto these assumptions have obscured the (...) phenomenal integrity of the learning environment; since the topic sought is based on critical incidents according to analysts’ interests, but not on the actual identifying details of the setting as made available by the participants. While teaching and learning moments are generic issues, in methodological terms these matters have to be explored in their details. In our article, we align ourselves with particular research approaches, namely ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, that facilitate close analysis of ‘perspicuous settings’, such as classroom interactions, through which phenomena such as teaching and learning moments are made visible as collaborative accomplishments. (shrink)

The paper discusses Iris Marion Young's idea of asymmetric reciprocity that rethinks typical understandings of gift giving. Iris Marion Young's proposals for asymmetric ethical relationships have important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take differences seriously. Imagining oneself in the place of the other or expecting from the other what one expects from oneself levels out differences between people and hinders possibilities of interaction. The conditions of asymmetry and reciprocity of Iris Marion Young's communicative ethics, as well as that (...) of the unexpected as understood within situations of gift giving, bring about new readings of learning and teaching situations. The paper discusses issues of power and knowledge that have important ethical implications for how the relationships between the teacher and student could be imagined and how the teacher and student imagine themselves. Following Derridean underpinnings to Young's notion of asymmetric reciprocity the paper questions pedagogic attempts that seek to minimize the asymmetric positions of the teacher and the student and challenges educational practices based on the reproduction of knowledge and reproduction of persons. The paper follows Young's arguments against Derrida's reading of asymmetry as being one sided. It argues that such a reading does away with the idea of teaching and learning altogether as teaching necessarily involves acts of responding. It continues to argue that Young's conceptualizations of gift giving as reciprocal and asymmetrical open up alternative understandings of the pedagogic relationships between teachers and students. (shrink)

This qualitative research study examines moral responsiveness and thinking in a mixed gender class of primary school children over a period o f four and a half years. It sets out to track development in children’s moral awareness, looking at gains and losses from middle to late childhood, and focusing on cognitive skills, notions of moral rectitude, and interpersonal relationships and friendship. The first part of the study is designed to offer a theoretical background to inform interpretation of the data (...) in the second part. It examines major issues in morality and moral education in the context of significant recent debates across several disciplines, including developmental psychology, philosophy, sociology and education; it also offers a theoretical perspective on children’s ability to think together about morality in a community of enquiry and on related issues of pedagogy. Through interpretation of transcripts, the second part o f the study analyses the children’s thinking, in response to a wide range of content, on issues of justice, freedom and responsibility, rights and duties, inclusiveness, and friendship. Gender differences, most notably the reticence of girls to express themselves in a mixed gender group after about age ten, are also examined. The study demonstrates how, through participation in a community of ethical enquiry such as Thinking Time - Philosophy with Children, children become more thoughtful and develop respect and responsiveness to others as well as other traits of character that are central to democratic citizenship. (shrink)