Sowing the Seeds of Love: Dialogic Interactions for Social Change

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday III)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Schooling, identities, and subjectivities

Proposal

Dialogic interactions are a feature of sociocultural learning and help to establish the child and the adult as both learner and teacher. This pilot study took place in an out-of-school hours program run by a Bay Area non-profit. The elementary aged children in this program meet once a week for two hours. An overarching goal of the program is to encourage and develop political discourse and activism. The researcher collected data over a two-month period, including field notes, transcriptions of meetings, various quick writes and memos, and an interview with the program coordinator. The researcher found that the program coordinator utilized techniques during whole group discussions that boosted engagement and participation. Three techniques: echoing, affirmation, and extending the conversation, were most commonly identified. The program’s social justice oriented mission is supported by concrete actions by and with members.

Author

• Liz Murray, University of San Francisco