Transforming personal experience and emotions through secondarisation in education for cultural diversity: An interplay between unicity and genericity

Harnessing emotions to deliberative argumentation in classroom discussions on historical issues in multi-cultural contexts

“…Learners were driven to empathetic attention to the emotions and values of adversary narrators and reflection on the reactions they arouse. This practice aligns to some degree with the process of secondarisation, in which learners reflect on emotions and produce more generalized understanding of their social aspect (Mirza, Grossen, de Diesbach-Dolder, & Nicollin, 2014).…”

“…It is a cognitive tool, directed at reconstructing the historical agents' consciousness. This approach also aligns to some degree with the movement between unicity and genericity, which drives forward the process of "secondarisation" in dealing with tense social phenomena (Muller Mirza et al, 2014).…”

“…With appropriate framing and instruction, students develop their capacity to handle emotions in discussions (Muller Mirza et al, 2014). They speak with each other, and deliberating together the historical roots of their conflict, even if their discourse was sometimes biased.…”

“…Instead of dodging the role of emotions and of identity, Gottlieb, Wineburg, and Zakai (2005) claim one should acknowledge identity influences on historical understanding, and accept the fact that individuals apply different critical standards to historical sources central and peripheral to group identity. Muller Mirza and colleagues (Muller Mirza et al, 2014) point to the importance of "secondarisation" of emotion, the process in which individuals reflect on their emotions and generalize them into more abstract concepts. Such a process is essential for handling contentious intercultural topics and for academic achievement.…”

Seizing the Unexpected and Creative Meaning Making in the Unfolding of Classroom Interaction

“…We draw on this assumption by referring to what Muller Mirza, Grossen, de Diesbach-Dolder, and Nicollin (2014) have called 'secondarisation', that is, a process transforming personal experience and emotions into thinking forms. Focusing on cultural diversity education, these authors have argued that when school subjects are particularly close to personal experience, and therefore emotionally salient, a transformation of these emotions into something learnable and knowledgeable is crucial for learning, development and identity (Grossen, 2010;Gillespie & Zittoun, 2010).…”