It has been claimed that dialogic education implies a direction of change upon an ontological dimension from monologic closed identities in the direction of more dialogic identifications characterised by greater openness to the other and greater identification with ‘dialogic space’ or the process of dialogue itself. This talk outlines that theory, proposes a dialogic methodology for researching the impact of dialogic education and presents some findings from an evaluation of the impact of a programme designed to promote greater dialogic open-mindedness: the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Face to Faith programme (now called ‘Generation Global’), which supports schools in over twenty different countries to engage in dialogue with each other through videos and blogs with a view to preventing extremist violence. The methodology put forward argues that the understanding sought by educational research is dialogic in that it emerges from the dialogue between inside and outside perspectives. The findings offer some clear evidence of a shift in identifications resulting from dialogue through the analysis of changes in online language use supported by interview evidence. This qualitative evaluation of change is supported by rigorous statistical analysis of changes in online language use, particularly the use of pronouns. This analysis indicates a shift over the time-scale of the pedagogical intervention in the way that language is used suggesting a shift in identity from a relatively closed sense of ‘us’ defined against an abstract sense of ‘them’ towards a more dialogic identity which can best be described as identification not with ‘us’ against ‘them’ but with the ‘dialogic space’ that unites and also encompasses the two terms. This study suggests that a pedagogical intervention focussing on improving the quality of online dialogue has the potential to open and sustain shared dialogic spaces and also that it is possible to rigorously evaluate this impact. Keywords: dialogic theory, CSCL, blogging, video-conferencing, global education, religious education

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