Dialogic education

Dialogic education is argued to have historical roots in ancient oral educational traditions. The chavrusa rabbinic approach, for example, involved pairs of learners analysing, discussing, and debating shared texts during the era of the Tannaim (approximately 10-220 CE).[2] Dialogue was also a defining feature of early-Indian texts, rituals and practices that spread across Asia with the rise of Buddhism.[3] Indeed, one of the earliest references to an idea of dialogue is in the Rigveda (c. 1700-1100 BC), where the poet asks the deities Mitra and Varuna to defend him from the one “who has no pleasure in questioning, or in repeated calling, or in dialogue”.[4] Later, Buddhist educators such as Nichiren (1222-1282) would themselves present work in a dialogic form.[5] It has also be linked to traditional Islamic education with Halaqat al-’Ilm, or Halaqa for short, in mosque-based education whereby small groups participate in discussion and questioning in 'circles of knowledge'.[6] A dialogic element has similarly been found in Confucian education.[7]

Links are often also made with the Socratic method, established by Socrates (470-399 BC), which is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. There is some debate over whether the Socratic method should be understood as dialectic rather than as dialogic.[8] However it is interpreted, Socrate's approach as described by Plato has been influential in informing modern day conceptions of dialogue, particularly in Western culture. This is not withstanding the fact that dialogic educational practices may have existed in Ancient Greece prior to the life of Socrates.[9]

Over the last five decades, robust research evidence has mounted on the impact of dialogic education.[10] A growing body of research indicates that dialogic methods lead to improved performance in students’ content knowledge, text comprehension, and reasoning capabilities.[11] The field has not, however, been without controversy. Indeed, dialogic strategies may be challenging to realise in educational practice given limited time and other pressures. It has also been acknowledged that forms of cultural imperialism may be encouraged through the implementation of a dialogic approach.

There is a lack of clarity around what is meant by the term ‘dialogic’ when used to refer to educational approaches. The term ‘dialogue’ itself is derived from two words in classical Greek, ‘dia’ meaning ‘through’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘word’ or 'discourse'.[12] Dialogic is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an adjective applied to describe anything ‘relating to or in the form of dialogue’.[13] Dialogic can also be used in contrast to ‘monologic’, which is the idea that there is only one true perspective and so that everything has one final correct meaning or truth. Dialogic, however, contends that there is always more than one voice in play behind any kind of explicit claim to knowledge. If knowledge is a product of dialogue it follows that knowledge is never final since the questions we ask and so the answers that we receive, will continue to change.

Dialogic education has been defined as engaging students in an ongoing process of shared enquiry taking the form of a dialogue[14] and as Robin Alexander outlines in his work on dialogic teaching, it involves drawing students into a process of co-constructing knowledge. Rupert Wegerif sums this up by claiming that 'Dialogic Education is education for dialogue as well as education through dialogue'.[15]

Dialogic approaches to education typically involve dialogue in the form of face-to-face talk including questioning and exploring ideas within a ‘dialogic space’ but can also encompass other instances where 'signs' are exchanged between people, for instance via computer-mediated communication. In this way, dialogic approaches need not be limited only to classroom-based talk or "external talk".

In teaching through the opening of a shared dialogic space, dialogic education draws students into the co-construction of shared knowledge by questioning and building on dialogue rather than simply learning a set of facts. As argued by Bakhtin, children learn through persuasive dialogue rather than an authoritative transmission of facts, which enables them to understand by seeing from different points of view. Merleau-Ponty writes that when dialogue works it should no longer be possible to determine who is thinking because learners will find themselves thinking together.[16] It has been suggested by Robin Alexander that in dialogic education, teachers should frame questions carefully in order to encourage reflection and take different student’s contributions and present them as a whole. In addition, answers should be considered as leading to further questions in dialogue rather than an end goal.[17]

The Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research Group (CEDiR) that operates out of the University of Cambridge contributes to this field. As taken from their website, CEDiR’s aim is to consolidate and extend research on dialogic education, reaching across disciplines and contexts to influence theory, policy and practice.[18]

The Center for Research on Dialogic Instruction and the In-Class Analysis of Classroom Discourse is a joint effort housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• Dialogic learning
• Learning theory (education)
• Pedagogy