In the last few years, talking as a mean of argumentation in preschool has been the subject of several studies (Corsaro, 1994; Goodwin, Kyratzis, 2007; Kyratzis, 2004). We can identify two main tracks of inquiry, respectively devoted to investigate children-teacher talk and peer talk in early childhood (Erlich, 2010). Children-teacher talk (CT) in the classroom is primarily related to the management of planned activities (drawing, telling stories…), which are structured by teachers in terms of educational goals. CT requires specific teachers’ abilities in building learning environments enabling everyday conversation as a pillar for collaboration on knowledge construction from an early age (Hasan, 2002).

Conversely, peer talk (PT) mainly happens during non-structured activities, when children are allowed to play freely and talk occurs “on the spot”, following the children’s need to frame the conversation. PT involves two discursive planes. The first plane highlights the socio-anthropological dimensions of children talk, as a way for negotiating meaning and relationships embedded in peer culture (Rogoff, 1990). The second plane, focused on the developmental dimensions, considers PT as a key strategy for improving pragmatic competencies during the growth process (Valsiner, 2008).

Though CT and PT coexist within the same educational setting, historically they originated two separated research traditions (Blum-Kulka, Snow, 2004). Therefore, the relationship between formal and informal talk as a mean for learning in preschool remains relatively unexplored. To fill this gap we chose to analyze the way teachers and children use different kinds of argumentation through CT and PT in kindergarten.

For this purpose, we adopted a sociocultural perspective, which sees argumentation as a dialogic social practice aimed to develop children’ socialization through the process of arguing alternative points of views (Pontecorvo, 1993; Grimshaw, 1990).

Alternating structured activities and free play, kindergartens offer an ideal setting to study the way the teachers prompt children to discuss about a shared subject through everyday conversations, and the way children deal with the same issue on a peer basis. The research is aimed:

-   to know how effective are teachers in using argumentation as a conversational pattern directed to promote children learning;

-   to analyze what kind of discursive strategies children use in constructing arguments as a mean to negotiate social relationships through the peer talk;

-   to understand how CT and PT could integrate and contribute to create a “common ground” for collaborative learning in preschool.

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