Morality and polyphony in peer dialogues
Children’s moral practices in heterogeneous classrooms
This study investigates children’s dialogic negotiation of the moral order of the classroom in a heterogeneous
peer group. Drawing from video-ethnographic research in two primary schools in Italy, the study adopts a CA-informed approach to
analyze 9- to 10-year-old children’s dialogic interactions around the appropriate and inappropriate ways of behaving in the
classroom. As the analysis illustrates, children reproduce institutional moral norms and ideologies to sanction perceived
infringements of the classroom moral order. In response to that, the recipients provide accounts to justify their conduct
or resist the moral accusation of their classmates. In the discussion it is argued that these
morality-building practices are relevant to (a) children’s negotiation of their social organization and local identities in the
peer group and (b) children’s socialization to the moral expectations of the classroom community.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical background
- 2.1A dialogical perspective on classroom morality
- 2.1.1Morality and polyphony in the peer group
- 3.Setting and methodology
- 4.Analysis
- 5.Concluding discussion
- Notes
-
References