The symposium is interested in the empirically observable tensions between the interaction order (Goffman 1983) necessary for the accomplishment of teaching practice and demanding subject-related tasks that potentially challenge an established order. Although the classroom interaction order is aligned with the organisational purpose of enabling (subject-related) learning, it also seems to function independently and even potentially in tension with challenging tasks: “it has a life on its own and makes demands on its own behalf” (Vanderstraeten 2001, p. 273). This tension is also noticeable if we look at teaching and learning practices from different research traditions and perspectives. Looking at a classroom from the perspective of the classroom order or either with a viewpoint of the generic quality of instruction (e.g., Praetorius et al. 2018), one may assess a particular lesson as efficient and well-managed. In contrast, the same lesson might appear profoundly deficient and inefficient from a didactical, content-based point of view (Breidenstein & Tyagunova 2020; Schlesinger et al. 2018). Findings from research on classroom management show that demanding and challenging tasks also pose greater difficulties for classroom management: “In response to these threats to order, teachers often simplify task demands or lower the risk for mistakes” (Doyle 2006, p. 111). Practices of classroom management and practices of learning operate thus in different logics and may be in tension with each other. 

In order to make these tensions empirically visible within the symposium, a selected lesson recorded on video will be analysed using different analytical and methodological approaches. Video studies have become an important resource for the analysis of teaching processes and practices in recent years. This is reflected in the large number of international video studies within Europe (e.g., Klette et al. 2022) and beyond (e.g., Opfer 2022) that focus on more or less subject-specific aspects of teaching. Accordingly, there is a certain consensus in classroom research that the observation of instructional interactions requires direct analysis of teaching processes themselves (Opfer 2022). Video studies, therefore, seem particularly suitable for considering both the perspective of the teachers and that of the students, as well as the interactive interconnectedness of teaching and learning practices and the involvement of material things. Based on these assumptions, we will look at the relationship between teachers' “instruction practices” (Klette et al. 2022) and students' learning practices, addressing the following questions:

-        What subject-specific processes and practices can be identified based on video observations of classroom interaction?

-        Which phenomena of classroom order and which aspects of subject-related teaching and learning processes become visible with the help of particular analytical and methodological approaches and which are ‘overlooked’ or not taken into account at all?

-        How do different camera perspectives affect the analysis of interactive processes and interactions in the classroom?

The empirical video data for the joint analysis came from the Research Training Group 2731 Subject Specific Learning and Interaction in Elementary School (INTERFACH), granted 2022 by the German Research Foundation (DFG). A special feature of the study’s video data is that, in addition to the classic teacher and student camera, the data collection was expanded to the extent that individual pairs of students were additionally recorded with several action cams in the classroom. The material comes from a 3rd grade math lesson in Germany. The students work on ‘arithmetic triangles’ and are asked to identify a pattern in the triangles they have calculated at the end of the lesson The aim of the symposium will then be to compare the analyses of this joint video to find out if and how the different methodological approaches can lead to different and/or similar results.

Breidenstein, G., & Tyagunova, T. (2020). Praxeologische und didaktische Perspektiven auf schulischen Unterricht. In H. Kotthoff & V. Heller (Hrsg.), Ethnografien und Interaktionsanalysen im schulischen Feld. Diskursive Praktiken und Passungen interdisziplinär (S. 197–219). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto. Doyle, W. (2006). Ecological Approaches to Classroom Management. In C.M. Evertson & C.M. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of Classroom Management: Research, Practice, and Contemporary Issues (pp. 97–125). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Goffman, E. (1983). The Interaction Order. American Sociological Review, 48. 1–17. Klette, K., Roe, A., & Blikstad-Balas, M. (2022). 6. Observational Scores as Predictors for Student Achievement Gains. In Ways of Analyzing Teaching Quality: Potentials and Pitfalls (S. 173-203). Opfer, D. (2020). The rationale of the Study. In OECD (Hrsg.), Global Teaching InSights: A Video Study of Teaching (S. 17-32). Paris: OECD Publishing. Praetorius, A.-K., Klieme, E., Herbert, B., & Pinger, P. (2018). Generic dimensions of teaching quality: the German framework of Three Basic Dimensions. ZDM: Mathematics Education, 50(3), 407–426. Schlesinger, L., Jentsch, A., Kaiser, G., König, J., & Blömeke, S. (2018). Subject-specific characteristics of instructional quality in mathematics education. ZDM: Mathematics Education, 50(3), 475–490. Vanderstraeten, R. (2001). The School Class as an Interaction Order. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(2), 267–277.