The Dialogic Classroom

This book brings together a collection of chapters from international researchers who give prominence to classroom talk and interaction beyond its taken-for-grantedness in pedagogical practice, and everyday happeningness in lessons. Drawing on a range of methodological and analytic paradigms, the chapters aim to draw together various perspectives on the matter to foreground its purposes, power and position as both a pedagogical practice and a pedagogical tool for student learning and participation. Empirically, the chapters direct timely attention to: the nature of classroom talk as it is understood by decades of research; the ways talk and interaction form dialogic approaches to instruction; the way talk and interaction act as critical tools in effective literacy teaching and learning; how pedagogical talk is constituted as a practice as it shapes and is shaped by the sites, histories and circumstances in which it happens; and how teachers change talk and interaction practices in ways that accomplish and secure sustainable education development.

This book argues for a dialogic turn, with a sensibility to dialogue and its role in effective pedagogical practice. It directs readers to the nature of the everyday encounters in classroom literacy lessons by focusing on the nature and influence of classroom talk and how it works—and what it affords—in the everyday unfolding of teaching and learning in its endeavor to secure ‘education’ for students.