Between students. Student culture and participation in learning processes in the first three years of primary and secondary school
Author(s):
Simon Michelet (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2012
Network:
27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching
Format:
Paper

Session Information

27 SES 04 B, Parallel Paper Session

Parallel Paper Session

Time:
2012-09-19
09:00-10:30
Room:
ESI 3 - Aula 7
Chair:
Joana da Silveira Duarte

Contribution

Students’ learning in the classroom takes place in relation to subject matter and the teacher. Another influence, although less evident, are classmates and their opinions about the teacher and the subject, which we may understand as student culture. Choosing this perspective the following research question was proposed:

 

How do cohesion and tensions in the student culture affect the students’ participation in learning processes in arenas of learning at school?

 

From this point of departure the study investigates students’ interaction (Bakhtin 1934, Linell 2009, Rommetveit 2004) mediated in time and space (Vygotsky 1930, 1934, Wertsch 1991, 1998) as student culture (Geertz 1973, Gullestad 1989). The student culture comes into being by children positioned as students negotiating contributions from school culture, peer culture and home culture. Academic learning-and-teaching as the core activities of everyday life in classrooms becomes constructed in social processes with communicative and social learning interwoven (Frønes 1994, Mercer 1995, Wells 1999, Woods 1983). And because student culture make some kinds of participating in learning processes probable and others improbable, it is interesting to investigate relations between learning and student culture. As part of understanding classroom activity this can be seen as an argument for expanding the perspectives of didactics with a cultural perspective, where the concept of student culture is a possible contribution. Teachers need conceptual tools that are helpful to get a grip on actions within their reach that can modify and influence the students’ development of the student culture in line with the project of schooling.

Method

In observing one class from 1th to 3rd grade and another from 8th to 10th grade, the study used video and sound recordings to establish relevant sets of empirical data (Green, Skukauskaite, Dixton & Córdova 2007). What gradually emerged from the fieldwork was that social and academic negotiations in situations where something was at stake would prove to be ethnographical hotspots. More specific, situations were recorded where students mutually had to interpret a task and agree on what had to be done by whom. Similar kinds of interactions were recorded during whole-class discussions about activities like end-of-term ceremonies and in break dialogues concerning everyday issues of importance to the participating students. The material was complemented by video recordings from other classroom formats, observations from the class next door and interviews with the students involved. These interactions were appropriate to throw light on mutually constructed meaning between students, exposing norms, understandings and values as parts of student culture that situates the students’ interaction in time and space. Furthermore, the video recordings displayed the students’ participation in interactions productive to learning. Ethnographic analyses of the incidents from each school-class and analyses engaging CAQDAS of the phenomena across the empirical material were conducted.

Expected Outcomes

The study develops student culture as a theoretical concept relevant to teaching-and-learning. The concept of student culture includes a lot of what is usually understood by social environment and learning environment, interweaving them with established theoretical concepts like culture, community and activity. The students participate as collaborators or opponents in learning processes characterized by developing experiences, handling information, knowledge building, developing understanding and meta-learning. At the same time they participate in social learning processes characterized by how social relations and positions are played out in the classroom through participation in interaction and common decision-making. To some extent, the social and the academic processes are more like aspects of the same learning processes than two different processes. The student culture in a classroom and the acknowledgement from fellow students can be conflicting; for example may cooperative interaction be acknowledged by some students and domination by others. The study demonstrates how such characteristics of the student culture influence the students’ participation in learning processes in the classroom. Further it argues that the concept of culture should supplement psychological and didactical perspectives to throw light on new dimensions regarding activities and learning processes in the classroom.

References

Bakhtin, M. (1934/1981). The Dialogic Imagination : Four Essays. [Red. ved M. Holquist]. Austin: University of Texas Press Frønes, I. (1994/2006). De likeverdige : Om sosialisering og de jevnaldrendes betydning (3. utg.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Geertz, C. (1973c). The Interpretation of Cultures : Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books Green, J., Skukauskaite, A., Dixton, C. & Córdova, R. (2007). Epistemological Issues in the Analysis of Video Records: Interactional Ethnography as a Logic of Inquiry. I: R. Goldman, R. Pea, B. Barron & S. J. Derry (red.), Video Research in the Learning Sciences. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Gullestad, M. (1989). Kultur og hverdagsliv : på sporet av det moderne Norge. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking Language, Mind and World Dialogically : Interactional and Contextual Theories of Human Sense-Making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc. Mercer, N. (1995). The Guided Construction of Knowledge : Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners. (Multilingual matters). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Rommetveit, R. (2004). Om dialogisme og relasjonen mellom individuell psyke og kulturelt kollektiv. I: I. Frønes & T. S. Wetlesen (red.), Dialog, selv og samfunn. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag Vygotsky, L. S. (1930-34/1978). Mind in Society : The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. [Red. ved M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner og E. Souberman]. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press Vygotsky, L. S. (1934/1986). Thought and Language. [Revidert og red. ved A. Kozulin]. Cambridge, Massachusett: MIT Press Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic Inquiry : Towards a Sociocultural Practice and Theory of Education. New York: Cambridge University Press Woods, P. (1983). Sociology and the school : an interactionist viewpoint. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the Mind : A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as Action. New York: Oxford University Press

Author Information

Simon Michelet (presenting / submitting)
Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
Faculty of Education and International Studies
Oslo

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