Dialogue Argumentation And Education

This book presents the historical, theoretical and empirical foundations of educational practices involving dialogue and argumentation.

During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is a critical competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains. Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.

Argumentation as a teaching and learning method in the K-12 curriculum has received increasing attention across the globe. The reason for this is simple: argumentation helps students develop necessary critical thinking skills. However, teaching this method is not as straightforward as it may appear. Placing the classroom at the centre of the investigation, this book seeks to throw light onto argumentation as a teaching practice by asking: What does it take to teach as argument? What does it mean to be ‘argumentative’ teachers? And, how can we create classroom environments that will help and encourage young people to develop their argument skills? Based on first-hand experience and extensive research, this volume guides the reader through argumentation with the focus placed on the relationship between this teaching method and effective learning and the need to investigate the role of teachers in encouraging argumentation in the classroom. Although there are a considerable number of tools and techniques that promote argumentation in the K-12 classroom, many teachers struggle to successfully implement them in the classroom. Aimed at addressing this issue, this book endeavours to instruct teachers on how to apply argumentation effectively in their day-to-day classes and to clarify argumentation as a teaching and learning strategy. As an important contribution to the field of argumentation and education, this book will be of interest to researchers, post-graduate students, and secondary school teachers, alike.

In the spirit of models of argument starting with inquiry, this book starts with a question: What might it mean to teach argument in ways that open up spaces for change—changes of mind, changes of practice and policy, changes in ways of talking and relating? The author explores teaching argument in ways that take into account the complexities and pluralities young people face as they attempt to enact local and global citizenship with others who may reasonably disagree. The focus is foremost on social action—the hard, hopeful work of finding productive ways forward in contexts where people need to work together across difference to get something worthwhile done.

Although talk about dialogue is common, nothing clear, significant, and educationally useful has been written about the nature of dialogue and the principles and conditions that support or undermine it. Education as Dialogue argues that true dialogue and education require beliefs, rules, virtues, and habits that facilitate learning while preventing the acquisition of doctrines. Tasos Kazepides shows that the prerequisites for dialogue and education are similar to Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of "river-bed propositions" - propositions that are the foundation of our ability to think and to reason. He argues that understanding education as genuine dialogue ought to become central to educational theory and practice because it is the most appropriate and effective way to motivate and engage students and the best way to guard against indoctrination. The pivotal importance of education as dialogue is emphasized for its capacity to encourage critical thought, in contrast to indoctrination, which arrests, limits, or frustrates thought. Taking a unique approach to thinking about education, Kazepides provides a welcome and instructive work that stresses the importance of seeing education as dialogue.

Education is a main issue in all countries. Policy makers, educators, families, students and, in a more general way, societies expect schools to provide a high quality education. They also expect students to be able to achieve and to become active and critical citizens. As senior researchers in education, we address some of the most complex and demanding research questions: How does learning affect identity? How does participation to educational settings, scenarios and situations impact the way we are or became? Can changes in how we perceive our Selves be considered as part of the learning process? This book attempts to outline some answers to such broad questions using a very robust and updated theoretical frame: the dialogical approach. In these chapters very well-known international authors from different continents and countries analyze school and educational situations through new lens: by considering the teaching and learning processes as multi-voiced and socially complex and considering identity development as a true leverage for development. The focus on the dialogical nature of both learning and identities makes this book interesting not only for educators and educational researchers but also for anyone interested in human sciences, policy makers, students and their families. We also aimed at producing a book that can be useful for different cultures and educational systems. Thus, in this book there are researches and comments from different cultural perspectives, making it appealing for a very large target-public.

Dialogical Argumentation and Reasoning in Elementary Science Classrooms explores how argumentation emerges and develops in and from classroom interactions by focusing on thinking and reasoning through/in relations with others and the learning environment.

"Introducing a new framework for teaching and learning literature in secondary schools, this book presents Dialogic Literary Argumentation as an inquiry-based approach to engage students in communicating and exploring ideas about literature. As a process of discovery, Dialogic Literary Argumentation facilitates conversation-"arguing-to-learn"-as a method to support students' diverse perspectives and engagement with one another in order to develop individual and collective understandings of literature and their place in the world. Covering both the theoretical foundation and application of this method, this book demonstrates how to apply Dialogic Literary Argumentation to teach literature in a way that foregrounds dialogue, learning through inquiry, diverse views, listening to others, and engagement with our communities. Ideal for preservice teachers in literacy methods courses and practicing teachers, it features real-world cases, discussions of the principles presented, resource lists, and conversation starters for professional learning communities, professional development, and teacher education"--