Applying a dialogical model of reason in the classroom

Recently there has been an increasing number of studies in psychology informed by dialogical rather than monological theoretical assumptions. In the area of cognition and learning this ‘dialogical turn’ implies a move away from explanation in terms of underlying cognitive structure toward descriptions of the dynamic construction of meaning in conversations (e.g. Edwards and Potter, 1992). In this chapter I argue that accepting dialogical assumptions does not mean abandoning useful models of cognition but that on the contrary models of cognition that follow from dialogical assumptions can be used very effectively to guide educational practice. I will make this argument through a discussion of the findings of several research studies in which a dialogical model of reason was applied to teaching in classrooms. This chapter has five main sections: the first outlines what I mean by the dialogical paradigm, the second discusses the nature of dialogical models, the third offers an explicitly dialogical model of reason for education, the fourth describes research applying this model in classrooms and the fifth and final section discusses the significance of the findings of this research for re-thinking collaborative learning.