Emotional Scaffolding of Academic Discussion in the Middle-Grades SLIFE Classroom

• In Event: New Directions in Studying Classroom Discussion and Participation

Abstract

Research indicates that academic discussion provides numerous benefits for learners. However, academic discussion remains rare in classrooms, which are typically characterized by profuse educator talk and discourse patterns that position learners as passive recipients of knowledge. This pattern is particularly pronounced for learners from historically-minoritized populations, such as students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). Though there are numerous potential reasons why academic discussion remains so rare in classrooms, we focus here on the challenges of providing emotional scaffolds to support SLIFE-designated learners’ sense of agency to engage in discussion. Drawing on observations and student-produced artifacts, this work explores how one middle-grades educator emotionally supports her SLIFE-designated students to agentically engage in the dialogic co-construction of meaning and knowledge.

Authors

• Heather M Meston, Vanderbilt University

• Emily Phillips Galloway, Vanderbilt University

• K. Addison Barrack