Practicing Power Through Language: Relational Authority in a Community of Inquiry

• In Event: 18.058 - MTCC Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: 18.058-8 - Understanding Learners' and Educators' Experiences Dialogically: Negotiating Engagement, Power, and Participation in Novel Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to investigate participants’ lived experiences in an after-school Philosophy for Children “Thinking Club” which included 27 neighborhood children and 10 university-affiliated adult participants. Data points included session fieldnotes, transcripts of videotaped sessions and semi-structured interviews, and participants’ reflection journals. Through recursive analysis of the data, the authors identified connections and patterns within and across domains describing participants’ lived experience in the philosophy club. Ethnographic analysis made visible how children’s dialogic and critical thinking experiences are negotiated through an ethic of caring and enhanced through a community of inquiry. However, the difficulties of shared power distribution and the potential for conflict within the community must be considered in the meaningfulness of after-school learning opportunities.

Authors

• Kim Skinner, Louisiana State University

• Lindsay Stewart, Louisiana State University

• Erica Stewart, Louisiana State University