Facilitating Transformative Elementary Civic Education With Diverse Students: An Analysis of Teacher Interactional Moves

• In Event: Pedagogies of Agency, Justice, and Liberation

Abstract

Drawing on the literature on transformative approaches to civic education, I define and utilize a five-component transformative civic education theoretical framework to examine how one fourth-grade teacher and her culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students engaged in transformative civic learning. Through closely analyzing classroom talk using microethnographic/discourse analysis methods, I found that the teacher enacted four interactional pedagogical moves that allowed students to expand on mainstream curricula and engage in transformative civic learning. I argue that we can further transformative civic education in classrooms by building teachers’ repertoires of interactional pedagogical moves that invite meaningful student participation and that are responsive to students’ contributions to civic discussions.

Author

• Jessica Somerville-Braun, Skidmore College