ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part provides the development of a dialogic pedagogy and the mounting evidence of its effectiveness, and discusses the challenges that may be faced by policy makers, teacher educators and teachers seeking to implement, and scale up, a ‘dialogic approach’ to classroom interaction. It focuses on how visual analytics may be used to facilitate the analysis of classroom talk to inform teacher professional learning and classroom practice. The part describes the tensions in ‘positioning all students as creative and capable participants in the work of the classroom’ whilst simultaneously extending and developing the cultural frameworks of canonical content knowledge. It examines the apparent contradictions in dialogic and dialectic intentions in the classroom and propose working towards genuinely democratic pedagogical practice through ‘polyphonic encounters’ in the classroom.
