Session Information
SES G 02, Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
In my study I examine verbal and non-verbal informal peer interaction in the classroom. In particular I focus how the local informal social order is constructed and adjusted to the part of the formal classroom lesson activity. I will concentrate only on the interaction of peers and encounters when teacher is not ratified participant such as playing, story-telling, disputing and complaining. By analyzing situated interaction processes my purpose is to expand our understanding on the children as competent participants to operate within their social world in the classroom. My data consists of video records from classroom interaction in some elementary schools in Finland.
We still know relatively little about how the local informal social order is built in children’s everyday interactions during the school lesson. The research knowledge is missing in particular in the point of view of action. Researchers have relied on interviews about peer’s experiences and ethnography rather than video records of naturally occurring events. My attempt is to discuss peer interaction as a ”phenomenon of order” or as a feature of social activity (Garfinkel 1967).
Tom Koole (2007) has demonstrated that classroom interaction is not a single activity; students can be engaged in parallel activities such as doing something individually or doing something collaboratively with a fellow student or with the teacher. Antonia Candela (1999) has described the ways how students can break away and resist teacher’s control during the classroom discourse. S. Danby and C. Baker (1998) have shown how the preschool teacher tries to restore the social order after children’s conflict, but at the same time misses how children operate with their own. Of these three researches the last one come closest to my study. Likewise Danby and Baker, my point is that children’s construct of their own social orders occurs outside and audible and visual scrutiny of the teacher. In addition, in my study identities are seen as emerging from participation in everyday interactional routines, rather than being pre-given categories.
My approach arises from ethnomethodological (Heritage 1996), micro-sociological (Goffman 1955; 1986) and conversation analytical (Hutchby & Wooffitt 1998; ten Have 2004) research traditions. My purpose is also to discuss with developmental psychology which has concentrated on the individual developmental processes. Ethnomethodological approach emphasizes how the common shared understanding is gained as a situated activity. The micro sociology of Goffman offers concepts like ‘frame’ and ‘face’ to understand the on-going interaction (Goffman 1955; 1986). I use conversational analysis tools such as sequence and preference organization to demonstrate how the social organization is built in different kind of episodes. Added to ethnomethodology and conversation analysis this study also applies multimodal approach aspects of non-verbal communication (Goodwin 2000).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Candela, A. (1999) Students’ power in classroom discourse. Linguistics and Education 10 (2), 139–163. Danby, S. & Baker, C. ‘What’s the Problem?” Restoring Social Order in the Preschool Classroom. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds.) Children and the Social Competence. Arenas of Action. Lon-don: Falmer Press, 157-187. Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Goffman, E. 1955. On face work: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Psychiatry; Journal of Interpersonal Relations, 18, 213-231. Goffman, E. 1986. Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northwestern University Press. Goodwin, C. 2000. Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 1489–1522. ten Have, P. 2004. Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide. London: Sage Publications. Heritage, J. 1996. Harold Garfinkel ja etnometodologia. 2. painos. Suomentajat Ilkka Arminen, Outi Paloposki, Anssi Peräkylä, Sanna Vehviläinen ja Soile Veijola. Jyväskylä: Gaudeamus. Hutchby, I. & Wooffit, R. 1998. Conversation analysis. Principles, practices and applications. Bodmin, Conwall: Polity. Koole, T. 2007. Parallel activities in the classroom. Language and education, 21, (6), 487-501.
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