ABSTRACT
Federica Colavita Facultad de Ciencias de la Educacion, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, Argentina
Nora Scheuer Instituteo de Formacion Docente, Consejo de Educacion de Rio Negro, Bariloche, Argentina
This study has three main purposes: (a) to discuss some theoretical problems concerning the concept of explanation in spontaneous interaction, and to develop a new approach that is different from the ones traditionally followed in develop mental psychology; (b) to devise a system of analysis to fit our theoretical framework; and (c) to present some qualitative and quantitative data supporting our approach, taken from the videorecordings of nine 3-year-old Italian children interacting spontaneously in groups of three. Since our main efforts in the past have been devoted to theoretical considerations (Barbieri, Colavita, & Scheuer, 1988) and to transforming these theories into a suitable coding system, the last section is mainly intended to illustrate the type of data and results that may emerge from our approach.
