Session Information
Contribution
In recent understandings of learning and development, interaction is considered as constitutive of learning (cf. Enfield & Levinson, 2006; Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 2003). Further, teaching and learning are viewed as constitutive parts of everyday life (Gergely and Csibra (2006). Hence, taking part in interaction is understood as taking part in learning situations, and learning is understood as changes in interactional practices. This was summarized in an almost catchphrase-way by Lave in 1993, when she wrote, in the introduction to Understanding Practice, that “there is no such thing as ‘learning’ sui generis, but only changing participation in the culturally designed settings of everyday life” (1993, pp. 5-6). Since 1993, the development in the field has been tremendous, as evidenced by the rapidly growing number of books and articles in this domain (for reviews and overviews, see e.g. Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Rogoff, 2003; Sfard & Lavie, 2005; and Säljö, 2005). An implication of these studies is that learning is not restricted to educational settings, but occurs in different contexts.
In this period of theoretical change, the segregating effects of comprehensive schooling in Western schooling systems seem to have persisted and increased (cf. eg. Lindblad, Johannesson & Simola, 2002; Halsey et. al, 1997; Gustafsson, 2006). To understand and explain differences in outcomes for different students, educational research has not yet succeeded in explaining why it is the case that initial differences found between children from different social and cultural groups persist and increase throughout the years of schooling, despite explicit contradictory curricular ambitions. Educational research in general still knows very little about how children are prepared for schooling in the family, and how interactional practices in the home and in the family are related to interactional practices inside educational institutions. Shirley Brice Heath (1983) shows how parents from three different social groups use quite different strategies in everyday literacy events, despite a shared interest in teaching their children reading and writing. Phillips (1983) shows how interaction patterns acquired by Native Americans was in sharp contrast to the expectations in the classroom, which in turn explains the difficulties of the children. Lareau (2003) argues that different families provide for different resources in education. However, very few studies explicitly focus the relations between educational policy, everyday life and classroom interaction as a way of understanding differences in the school careers of children.
Within two related projects, one at Uppsala University in Sweden, and one at University of Helsinki and Åbo Akademi University in Finland, researchers have attempted to develop a better understanding of these issues by studying children intensively for approximately week-long periods of time, video recording them for as many hours of the day as possible, both in the different daytime situations in school, and in situations outside school. This work has generated some promising results, and has also involved quite extensive development of ways of doing fieldwork. This paper reports this development, and discusses the developed approach.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
CHAIKLIN, S. & LAVE, J. (Eds.) (1993). Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ENFIELD, N. & LEVINSON, S. (Eds.). (2006). Roots of Human Sociality, Culture and Cognition. Oxford & New York: Berg. GERGELY, G. & CSIBRA, G. (2006). Sylvia's recipe: The role of imitation and pedagogy in the transmission of human culture. In: N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition, and Human Interaction (pp. 229-255). Oxford: Berg Publishers. Gustafsson, J-E. (2006). Barns utbildningssituation. Ett bidrag till ett kommunalt barnindex. Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden Halsey, A.H., Lauder, H., Brown, Ph. & Stuart Wells, A. (eds) 1997: Education. Culture, Economy, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lareau, A. (2003) Unequal childhoods. Class, Race and Family life. Los Angeles: University of California Press. LAVE, J. & WENGER, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. NY: Cambridge University Press. Lindblad, S., Johannesson, I. A., & Simola, H. (2002) Education Governance in Transition: an introduction. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 46(3), 237-245. Phillips (1983) Philips, S. U. (1993). The invisible culture: Communication in the classroom and the community on the Warm Springs Indian reservation. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press Inc. ROGOFF, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. SÄLJÖ, R., 2005. Lärande och kulturella redskap. Om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet. Norstedts Akademiska Förlag, Stockholm.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.