ABSTRACT
In this chapter I intend to discuss the concept of dialogic space theory. The concept of dialogue and the dialogic space and its place in learning in schools has been theorized by a number of scholars for many years (Freire 1970/1993; Habermas 1984; Bakhtin 1981; Wells 1999; Wegerif 2008, 2010; Alexander 2006). The subject is complex, as dialogue has been conceived differently by a number of key thinkers. Scholarship around one of the theory’s most important thinkers – Bakhtin – is also split, often because of confusion over authorship of works from the circle of thinkers with whom he worked and between Marxist and postmodernist views. Space does not allow me to cover all this work, so I have chosen to concentrate on: some of the work of Bakhtin, who is often credited with influencing dialogic learning; the work of Wegerif, who has used the theory in a number of important contemporary research studies; and finally the work of the revolutionary educationalist Freire, who adopts dialogue in education for social transformative purposes. I will begin this chapter by describing the philosophical and historical roots of the theory by examining the work of Bakhtin and the influences of Marxism. I will go on, with the help of contemporary scholarship (Wegerif 2008), to define the transcendental nature of the dialogic space and how this concept has been applied in practical classroom situations. I will highlight the arguably idealistic social democratic liberal nature of some of this work and contrast it with that of the more revolutionary applications of Paulo Freire. Throughout this chapter the issues of democracy, politics, power and equality will recur as themes which appear to consistently challenge and problematize the essential tenets of dialogic space theory when it is applied in contemporary school situations.
