During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and ...learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is an important competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains. However, learning argumentation and learning by arguing, at school, still raise theoretical and methodological questions such as: How do learning processes develop in argumentation? How to design effective argumentative activities? How can the argumentative efforts of pupils can be sustained? What are the psychological issues involved when arguing with others? How to evaluate and analyze the learners’ productions? Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.
In the school context, feelings and emotions are generally perceived as obstacles to learning. Today, however, the introduction of
complex real-world issues
in lessons of Geography, History or civic ...education, such as international migration or cultural diversity, blurs the classic boundaries between emotions and cognition when they prompt students’ personal opinions and experiences. In the frame of a research on teaching and learning practices in education for cultural diversity, this paper examines how students’ personal emotions were elicited in the lessons, and how they were semiotized, transformed in the course of social interactions. We analyze empirical data gathered in 12 Primary and Junior school classrooms in Switzerland. 12 teachers and 232 students (from 11 to 16 years old) participated. We adopt a cultural-historical perspective inspired by Vygotsky and his followers and show the interactional processes by which the emotions undergo
semiotization
and influence the unfolding of the students’ psychological processes. In the sequences we analyze, using the Valsiner’s schema (
Human Development, 44
, 84–97,
2001
), we identify three different modalities of semiotization: 1) the students’ feelings are simply verbalized and linked to the speaker’s affective world; 2) the verbalized emotions are reframed and interwoven with factual information; 3) the verbalized emotions are linked to information and reframed with collective emotional experiences. These processes are described, illustrated and discussed. We shed light on the central role of the verbal interventions of the teacher (who supports but also hinders the processes sometimes) and of
materiality
, here photographs, which mediated the teacher-student interactions.
Nous repensons ici les situations de communication plurilingue et interculturelle en contexte médical sous l’angle des injustices épistémiques (Fricker, 2007). À l’aide d’entretiens ...narrativo-explicitatifs portant sur deux situations relevant du rapport à la naissance et à la mort, décrites par deux médiatrices interculturelles, nous analysons les pratiques de ces dernières et mettons en évidence la manière dont elles s’y prennent pour que la parole des personnes allophones soit écoutée et crue. Notre étude contribue, d’une part, à mettre en lumière certains aspects liés aux injustices épistémiques dans la communication interculturelle, et, d’autre part, à repenser de manière critique le rapport entre les ontologies sous-tendant la relation à autrui, au corps et à la santé, mobilisées dans les institutions médicales.
Through this paper, we explore plurilingual and intercultural communication’s situations in a medical context from the point of view of epistemic injustices (Fricker, 2007). Using narrative-explicitative interviews on two situations (concerning birth and death), described by two intercultural mediators, we analyze their practices and highlight what they do to ensure that non-native speakers’ voice is listened to and believed. Our study contributes, on the one hand, to highlighting certain aspects related to epistemic injustices in intercultural communication, and on the other hand, to rethinking critically the relations between the ontologies underlying the relationship to the other, to the body and to health, mobilized in medical institutions.
In Switzerland, as elsewhere, issues dealing with cultural diversity raise major challenges in education. At present, little is known about how students make sense of these highly sensitive societal ...issues and relate them to their everyday experience. Drawing on a sociocultural and dialogical approach to learning, this study aimed at understanding how the students made sense of themes related to cultural diversity. More generally, it sought to examine whether secondarisation (i.e. a transformation of everyday experience into a more generic and scientific form) took place. In this study, ten focus groups were carried out: five in primary school (11- to 12-year-old students) and five in lower secondary school (13- to 14-year-old students) in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The specificity of the research design consisted of setting up a situation that had both similarities and differences with lessons on cultural diversity that had previously been taught in the classroom. We assumed that this would create dialogical tensions and thereby shed light on the obstacles that may arise when themes related to cultural diversity are taught in school. Analysis of the discursive dynamics of the focus-group discussions showed that education for cultural diversity cannot be considered independently of the student’s other spheres of experiences. Personal, social and moral dimensions are part of the students’ effort to make sense of the themes under discussion. Talking about cultural diversity, even though with pleasure and involvement, cannot be equated with learning and transforming these themes into scientific concepts. Moreover, dialogical tensions can create unexpected effects and even bring about the very phenomena that education for cultural diversity is supposed to fight.
Les recherches actuelles montrent que, si les stages sont des leviers de la socialisation professionnelle en situation de travail, l’apprentissage ne se réalise pas par simple imprégnation. Dans cet ...article, nous étudions l’expérience du stage d’adaptation du point de vue d’un infirmier provenant d’un pays non-membre de l’UE/AELE, candidat à l’homologation de son diplôme en Suisse. Nous examinons les apprentissages réalisés et les difficultés rencontrées pendant cette étape de la trajectoire de formation. En adoptant une approche en socio-anthropologie et en psychologie culturelle, l’analyse porte sur des entretiens menés auprès de ce candidat, qui combine une double position, de professionnel et d’apprenant. Les résultats montrent que le stage d’adaptation est un lieu traversé par des logiques contradictoires, rendant difficile la construction d’une socialisation. Ils mettent en lumière les tensions à l’œuvre entre dynamiques d’apprentissage, d’intégration et d’altérisation.
Current research shows that although internships are levers of professional socialisation in work situations, learning does not take place in a linear form. In this article, we study the experience of an adaptation internship from the perspective of a nurse from a non-EU/EFTA country, who is a candidate for accreditation in Switzerland. We examine the learning achieved and the difficulties encountered during this internship in the training trajectory. Adopting a socio-anthropological and socio-cultural psychological approach, the analysis is based on interviews conducted with this candidate who combines a double position of professional and learner. Results show that the adaptation course is a place shaped by contradictory logics, making the construction of a socialization process difficult. These results also highlight the tensions at work between dynamics of learning, integration and othering.
Aujourd’hui le bénévolat représente un domaine d’activité dynamique dans les sociétés européennes et joue un rôle important notamment auprès de populations en situation de vulnérabilité. Il occupe à ...cet égard une place à la fois en marge et en interaction avec les instances étatiques, et se trouve au cœur de tensions entre travail rémunéré et don de soi. Dans cet article, en adoptant une approche socioculturelle, nous présentons les résultats d’une étude qui visait à mieux comprendre le « travail bénévole » du point de vue des acteurs : comment les individus donnent-ils sens à un travail qui se présente généralement comme peu prescrit ? Quel type d’activité « réelle » mettent-ils en œuvre ? L’étude a porté sur des bénévoles engagés dans un collectif d’une ville de Suisse francophone, orienté vers le soutien scolaire d’enfants issus de la migration en difficulté à l’école. En articulant logiques singulières et logiques collectives, nous examinons la façon dont les personnes déploient les pratiques concrètes qui constituent leur « travail » et comment elles traduisent les contraintes des différents systèmes d’activité dans lesquels elles prennent place. À partir de l’analyse d’entretiens, nous montrons que les pratiques des bénévoles se trouvent au cœur de tensions qui relèvent de dynamiques identitaires mais aussi politiques.
Volunteering is a dynamic area of activity in European societies and plays an important role, particularly for vulnerable groups. In this respect, it occupies a place both on the margins and in interaction with state authorities, and is at the heart of tensions between paid work and self-giving. In this article, we present the results of a study that aimed to better understand "voluntary work" from the point of view of the actors: How do individuals give meaning to work that is generally presented as little prescribed? What kind of "real" activity do they carry out? The study concerned volunteers working in a collectivity in a town situated in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, oriented towards providing school support to children from migrant backgrounds who have difficulties at school. By articulating singular and collective logics, following a sociocultural approach, we examine the way in which individuals involved carry out the concrete practices that constitute their "work" and how they translate the constraints of the different systems of activity in which they take place. Based on the analysis of interviews, we show that the practices of volunteers are at the heart of tensions that arise from both identity and political issues.
Cet article repose sur les résultats d’une recherche portant sur les pratiques réelles d’enseignement de l’éducation interculturelle. A partir des considérations mises en évidence dans la littérature ...autour des risques de « culturalisation » de ces pratiques, cette contribution vise à comprendre la façon dont les difficultés émergent, se développent, se transforment dans les interactions en classe. Sur la base de séquences pédagogiques recueillies en classe lors de leçons à visée interculturelle, nous repérons des incidents critiques qui permettent d’identifier les tensions entre, d’une part, les intentions pédagogiques des enseignant·e·s qui visaient à construire des connaissances et déconstruire des phénomènes comme la discrimination sociale ou les stéréotypes, et, d’autre part, le processus interactif de construction de sens qui a parfois pour résultat leur réification.
Developing a reflexive stance on personal emotions and experiences relating to otherness is one of the main goals of innovative pedagogical activities designed to combat racism. This novel ...socio-constructivist approach to cultural diversity in education seems an interesting alternative to essentialist approaches, as it involves the learner and uses reflexivity to foster change. However, little is yet known about the psychosocial effects of introducing emotions and personal experiences into the learning environment. In this paper, adopting a sociocultural theoretical framework, we describe two pedagogical settings in which students’ emotions and personal experiences were addressed in a multicultural context. The results of our first study showed that, in some teacher-student interactions, students’ verbalized emotions were articulated in a more generic discourse. Working with emotions can therefore lead to what we call a secondarization process, whereby personal experiences are related to collective and conceptualized knowledge. However, these pedagogical practices may also generate unexpected outcomes that hinder learning. The second study explored the structuring effect of (self-)narratives, viewed as psychological instruments. These findings are discussed with a view to informing the debate on the role of emotional aspects in education, and sociocultural research in psychology examining the complex interplay between individual and cultural dimensions in learning.
Far from following a linear process from its conception to its implementation, an educational design often involves discrepancies between what its promoters intended and what the participants ...actually do. In this paper, drawing from a sociocultural perspective to learning, we focus our attention precisely on some of the discrepancies observed during the implementation of a training program. We consider these discrepancies not as mistakes or misunderstandings, but rather as indicators of the communicative dimension of any intervention and as "windows" on the processes of change and on learning. The program we have studied here was set up in Madagascar and was sustained by a Swiss cooperation agency addressed to farmers in the field of forestry. In this research, we adopted an actor-oriented perspective in order to understand the promoters' and the beneficiaries' interpretation of the design and the way they developed innovative strategies to resolve the difficulties they faced. We chose some "critical incidents" from the data gathered through ethnographical research and show how the whole process of the conception and the implementation of the program was deeply affected by both the power dynamic embedded in the history of the relationship between the Swiss and the Malagasy groups and by their own cultural and institutional constraints. In conclusion, we discuss the significance of an actor-oriented perspective that contributes to a better understanding of the social and cultural dimensions of learning and allows us to relate the here and now micro-phenomena to the larger anthropological, social, and political scenery.
When subjects studied at school are close to societal discourses and to the students' social identities, when they have high emotional resonance, is it possible to enable the students to distance ...themselves from their emotions and personal experience, and to conceptualise them? Examining the relation between emotion and learning through the lens of socio-cultural psychology, the aim of our study was to shed light on “secondarisation” processes, that is, processes that transform personal experience and emotions into conceptualised forms of thinking. We analysed 85 video-recorded lessons in education for cultural diversity involving 12 teachers (of primary and secondary schools). Having identified episodes in which emotions were put into words or personal experience was reported, we analysed the use of pronouns (taken as indicators of secondarisation processes) and found a recurrent pattern: “the unicity–genericity routine”. We illustrate the functioning of this routine with various excerpts taken from lessons in education for diversity taught in the classes of two teachers in primary school. The results show that the interplay between unicity and genericity works as a discursive resource for the development of secondarisation processes.
•Education for cultural diversity (ECD) deals with sensitive social issues.•It refers to the students' personal experience and raises emotional reactions.•A challenge of ECD is to succeed in developing secondarisation processes.•A unicity–genericity routine was observed in classroom interactions.•This routine worked as a discursive resource for secondarisation processes.
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