Knowing Across Settings: Differences That Make a Difference

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Cross-Context Studies of Learners’ Experiences of and in Activity

Abstract

“Epistemic framing” has gained currency in recent years as a way of applying socio-linguistic notions of frame analysis to the activities and social practices of learning and knowing (e.g., Bing, 2008; Shaffer, 2006; Scherr & Hammer, 2008). This paper illustrates the value of extending epistemic frame analysis to cross-contextual research for the purposes of comparatively describing the frames and other practical norms of diverse settings, particularly as participants might experience them differentially. Thus, it adds both a broader ethnographic scope and a phenomenological dimension to studies of epistemic frames, providing a method for describing both (1) how the knowing subject is constituted as a function of the institutional practices he or she experiences in varied settings across the life space, and (2) what diverse learning settings, as such, signify or mean to participants. This paper will include examples of the role of specific types of interactional events, such as inversion of hierarchies (Jacoby & Gonzalez, 1991), naturalistic assessments (Michalchik & Gallagher, 2010), and typical forms of learning-relevant discourse (Lemke 1998; Michaels, O'Connor & Resnick, 2008; Cobb, Gresalfi & Hodge, 2009, Yackle & Cobb, 1996), in defining the context and the type of epistemic practices constitutive of both the knowing subject and the context more generally.

These issues—glossed as what it means to know or, more socially speaking, to be knowledgeable in different settings—will be examined using three cases. One case—based on a multi-year ethnographic study—examines the ways in which knowledgeability is indexed across the primary socializing institutions (family, church, and school) on a small and demographically homogenous Micronesian island. This case study shows how displays of knowledgeability help to define boundaries between statuses, regulate participation in vital activity, and situate participants in relative positions within the institutional framework. A second case examines the role of the “third” or “hybrid” spaces of out-of-school science programming in multiple communities throughout the U.S., indicating that, while the content and many of the activities in these settings are similar to those characteristic of school, these places themselves mean something very different to the children and families that participate, creating a alternative relationship between them and the domain of science in comparison to what they experience in school. The third case derives from studies in school where classroom norms can be broken down by activity into descriptions that help us better understand, for example, how participation is structured, what types of knowledge and representations matter, what forms of accountability for showing one’s knowledge exist, and how one makes valued contributions to the group. This case suggests that by varying the forms of representation and the moments in which students can proffer contributions, learning possibilities expand, interactional resources multiply, and students’ experience shifts to better support learning and development in the broader senses of the these terms.

Author

• Vera Safa Michalchik, SRI International