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Article published In:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 9:2 (2019) ► pp.193–216

Using formulations to manage conflicts in classroom interactions

| University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)

In classroom interactions, facilitation of children’s autonomous choice of acting (agency) may produce conflicts among children. While facilitation does not have the function of managing these conflicts, it shares some types of action with conflict mediation, one of which is formulation. Formulation elaborates the gist of previous utterances and enhances interlocutors’ actions. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of nine transcribed sequences of interaction, included into five different programs of facilitation. The analysis shows that formulations fulfil two different functions. First (function of mediation), they are designed as developments of the gist of children’s utterances, enhancing stories of cooperation. Second (function of facilitation), they are designed as explications of the gist of children’s utterances, without enhancing cooperative stories.

Keywords: classroom interaction, facilitation, conflict mediation, formulations, cooperation, reframing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Facilitation of dialogue and conflict management
  • 3.The corpus of data
  • 4.Formulating to mediate conflicts
  • 5.Formulating to facilitate conflicts
  • 6.General discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 12 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00038.bar
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Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Baraldi, Claudio
2022. Ways of Facilitating Children’ Agency. In Facilitating Children's Agency in the Interaction [Studies in Childhood and Youth, ], ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
Baraldi, Claudio
2022. Researching Agency and Interaction: Methodological Considerations. In Facilitating Children's Agency in the Interaction [Studies in Childhood and Youth, ], ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Farini, Federico & Angela Scollan
2023. How We Can Say What We Say: The Methodology of Facilitation, the Methodology of Observing Facilitation. In Pedagogical Innovation for Children's Agency in the Classroom, ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo

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