In this paper, we extend Bakhtin's ethical philosophical ideas to education and introduce a dialogic authorial agency espoused approach. We then consider this approach in opposition to the mainstream technological espoused approach, while focusing our contrasting analysis on student's authorial agency and critical dialogue. We argue that the technological approach assumes that the "skills" or "knowledge" are garnered in pursuit of preset curricular endpoints (i.e., curricular standards). Since the goals of the technological approach are divorced from the students ' personal goals, values, and interests, they are incompatible and irreconcilable with what we idealize as the true goal of education, education for agency.The authorial agency approach to education (Dialogic Education For and From Authorial Agency) emphasizes the unpredictable, improvisational, eventful, dialogic, personal, relational, transcending, and ontological nature of education. The authorial agency of the student and of the teacher are valued and recognized by all participants as the primary goal of education -supported by the school system and broader society. The approach defines education as a learner's leisurely pursuit of critical examination of the self, the life, and the world in critical dialogue. The purpose of authorial agency pedagogy is to facilitate this process by promoting students' agency and unique critical voices in socially desired practices -critical voices, recognized by the students themselves and others relevant to the particular practice(s). Ultimately, in the authorial education for and from authorial agency, students are led into investigating and testing their ideas and desires, assuming new responsibilities and developing new questions and concerns.Finally, we describe and analyze the first author's partially successful and partially failing attempt to enact a dialogic authorial approach. It will allow the reader to both visualize and problematize a dialogic authorial approach. We will consider a case with a rich "e-paper trail" written by 11 undergraduate, pre-service teacher education students (mostly sophomores), and the instructor (Peter, the first author, pseudonym) in a course on cultural diversity. ISSN: 2325-3290 (online)Dialogic Education for and from Authorial Agency Eugene Matusov, Mark Smith, Elizabeth A163 The case focuses on the university students (future teachers) and their professor discussing several occasions that involved interactions between Peter and one minority child in an afterschool center. Our research questions in this empirical study were aimed at determining the successes, challenges, and failures of the dialogic authorial pedagogical approach and conditions for them.Eugene Matusov is a Professor of Education at the University of Delaware. He studied developmental psychology with Soviet researchers working in the Vygotskian paradigm and worked as a schoolteacher before immigrating to the United States. He uses sociocultural and Bakhtinian dialogic approaches to education. ...
The goal of this article is to compare and contrast dialogic analysis versus discourse analysis of dialogic pedagogy to address Bakhtin’s quest for “human sciences” and avoid modern traps by positivism and by post-truth. We argue that dialogic analysis belongs to dialogic science, which focuses on studying “the surplus of humanness” (Bakhtin, 1991, p. 37). “The surplus of humanness” is “a leftover” from the biologically, socially, culturally, and psychologically given – the typical and general – in the human nature. It is about the human authorship of the ever-unique meaning-making. Dialogic analysis involves the heart and mind of the researchers who try to reveal and deepen the meanings of the studied phenomena by addressing and replying to diverse research participants, other scholars, and anticipated readers (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, & Gradovski, 2019, in press). We argue that dialogic science is concerned with meta-inquiries such as, “What does something in question mean to diverse people, including the researchers, and why? How do diverse people address and reply to diverse meanings?” In contrast, traditional, positivistic, science is concerned with meta-inquiries such as, “How things really are? What is evidence for that? How to eliminate any researchers’ subjectivity from the research?” (Matusov, 2019, submitted). Positivist (and monologic) science focuses on revealing patterns of actions, behaviors, and relationships. We argue that in the study of dialogic pedagogy, it is structural and/or functional discourse analysis that focuses on studying the given and objective aspects of dialogic pedagogy. In the paper, we consider, describe, interpret, and dialogically re-analyze a case of dialogic analysis involving science education coming from David Hammer’s and Emily van Zee’s (2006) book. We also discuss structural and functional discourse analysis of two pedagogical cases, a monologic and a dialogic one, provided by David Skidmore (2000). We dialogically re-analyze these two cases and Skidmore’s research. We conclude that in research on dialogic pedagogy (and beyond, on social sciences in general) both dialogic science (involving dialogic analysis) and positivist science (involving discourse analysis) are unavoidable and needed, while providing the overall different foci of the research. We discuss the appropriateness and the limitations of discourse analysis as predominantly searching for structural-functional patterns in the classroom discourses. We discuss dialogic tensions in the reported dialogues that cannot be captured by discourse analysis search for patterns. Finally, we discuss two emerging issues among ourselves: 1) whether discourse analysis is always positivist and 2) how these two analytic approaches complement each other while doing research on dialogic pedagogy (and beyond).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.