Retrospective Study of a Dialogic Elementary Classroom

This book uniquely combines data from a study focused on the use of dialogic instruction in an elementary classroom, with analysis of students’ retrospective beliefs about the classroom environment, interactions, and authority. Through this retrospective methodology, the text offers valuable insight into the long-term impacts of discursive practices on young learners’ attitudes to learning and their educational trajectories. Analysis also serves to further understandings of how the classroom environment can function as a living dialogue, in which authority in respect to talk, knowledge sharing, and curricular choices serves as an interactional accomplishment and means of social justice. This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics with an interest in classroom discourse and critical pedagogy. It will be of particular interest to those with a focus on elementary education.