Dialogic space: An introduction

ABSTRACT

Communicating in dialogic space in our classrooms prepares us to participate in a democratic, inclusive, and civil society. Dialogic space is that elusive shared space of possibilities that exists among participants as we commit to engaging in ways that new knowledge can be created, presented, questioned, and developed as interpretations of our realities are in conversation with those of others. We agree to be open, yet remain in dialogue, and to welcome different and conflicting ideas and perspectives. In other words, dialogic space carries a particular set of values about how differences are brought into relationship, how people are addressed, and who we can become. Teachers can communicate that dialogic space is an achievable communal aspiration, but it is up to students to participate. In this introduction to a special issue on dialogic space, we discuss challenges as well as discourse conditions and practices that signal investment in the project of dialogic space. In dialogic space, a classroom community embraces its potential as an environment for intellectual curiosity that invites courage and patience in students.

We are living in a time of increasingly entrenched divisions. Our world becomes ever more riven if we degrade our humanity by a discourse of “dis-re-spect.” Consider our “spect” language: inspect, circumspect, spectate. It means to see, to observe, to watch over. When we speak with “dis-re-spect,” it means we refuse to “re-see” each other in new or open ways, as fellow creatures in flux. In this time of division and difference there is an urgent need to create opportunities for respectfully discussing multiple ways of seeing and knowing in dialogic space. Dialogic space is that elusive “shared space of possibilities” (Wegerif, 2015) that exists among participants “as different ideas are held together in the creative tension of a dialogue” (Wegerif & Yang, 2011, p. 312). In dialogic space, participants commit to engaging in a manner such that new knowledge can be created, presented, engaged, questioned, and developed as interpretations of our realities are in conversation with those of others. We agree to be open, yet remain in dialogue, and to welcome different and even conflicting ideas and perspectives. In this liminal state of in-between certainties, we may even give way to new perspectives and identities. In other words, dialogic space carries a particular set of values about how differences are brought into relationship, how people are addressed, and who we can become.

But you cannot just enter dialogic space, you have to invest in the project of co-creating dialogic space. And dialogic space can burst like a bubble when an erstwhile participant refuses to subscribe to the rules of engagement. Human agency, intentionality, and vigilance are necessary for a space to remain dialogic. Furthermore, every culture has discursive means to engender dialogue- and these means are not always the same, so we must bring cultural humility to dialogic space.

The dialogic space we speak of is metaphorical. Just like “making space” for certain topics or “holding space” for the sharing of ideas and feelings are socially produced, so, too, is dialogic space opened, sustained, and bounded by our relations with, and participation in, dialogue across difference. But dialogic space is not to be conflated with safe space. Dialogic space requires a willingness to take risks, to admit and interrogate difference, and to be open to change. In safe space, people may share, and may heal, but they may not grow. There is room for both safe space and dialogic space, but they are not the same thing.

There is an irony in expecting students to enter and participate in dialogic space when many adults are struggling to talk with each other. It is much easier to shut down, or double down — to vacantly smile and nod or to talk past each other, rather than to engage with the ideas and perspectives being shared. Indeed, it has become increasingly our experience — in our classrooms and during faculty meetings — that small and large group conversations alike mostly consist of contributions where we agree with someone, or say nothing, or maybe offer a parallel “take.”

A personal example might help here. As a doctoral student, Maureen vividly recalls her participation in a small, children’s literature seminar. She was prepared and excited to talk about the books yet experienced deep frustration because, “Nobody talks to each other. Each of us says something, but we don’t actually talk.” Back then, what Maureen was calling “actually talk” involved commitment to hearing and considering what others were saying, and then talking about difference. She had experienced polite parallel sharing rather than engaging with difference. Despite safe and comfortable classroom conditions, students were not [yet] willing to actually talk about differences among ideas and ways of seeing.

Prerequisites of dialogic space are difference — in what is already known, and what is presented — as well as a willingness to engage with difference as we share, hear, and consider what is presented. When students know that their voices and perspectives are welcome, that they are heard and that they matter, they are more likely to participate in dialogic space. But they still might choose not to. Likewise, and as Maureen’s example illustrated, many students participating in an exchange does not mean they are engaging with difference.

So why is dialogic space important in our classrooms?

Dialogic space concerns how ideas and perspectives are presented, received, and folded into a classroom’s way of experiencing teaching and learning. It is constituted of and by a set of behaviors: active listening, yielding the floor, mindful presence, explicitly acknowledging and engaging with what is contributed. These behaviors create dialogic space, just as dialogic space engenders these behaviors. Dialogue begets dialogue. (And unfortunately “dis-re-spect” engenders disrespect.) In a sense, dialogic space is shorthand for knowing how to enact those behaviors and being willing to enact them. As such, dialogic space is not something to be summoned or scripted or demanded. Rather, the how of dialogic space is related to safe, inclusive classroom conditions where members practice respectful and responsive engagement by listening, questioning, and what is shared. How is also connected to participants learning that they can be uncomfortable and don’t always have to agree- and being open to dialoguing about difference and learning to understand each other.

Teachers can communicate that dialogic space is an achievable communal aspiration, even explicitly signal openings for dialogic space. They can invest in, and commit to, the project of co-creating dialogic space. But when opportunities for dialogic space emerge, it is up to students to participate. Their commitment to listening, sharing and being open to the multiplicity of what might be seen and known sustains that shared space of possibilities.

In dialogic space, a classroom community embraces its potential as an environment for intellectual curiosity that invites courage and patience in students. This can bring challenges. To honor students’ voices in dialogic space, teachers must be willing to relinquish control in terms of the scope of content (participants might bring in other experiences or texts or ideas) and in terms of the interpretive authority about content (participants might bring multiple, different, and even conflicting interpretations). Clearing time to discuss difference in dialogic space also brings classroom management challenges as a teacher can’t plan for how long a conversation thread might take and might well have to rethink a planned lesson.

Consider what it means if there is no dialogic space in our classrooms. Not talking about difference does not mean it is absent. What might the consequences be for students (both now and later) when different perspectives are silenced, or when a need to speak about difference erupts without invitation? Polarized confrontation is the flip side to polite parallel sharing, as participants stake and amplify their positions without actually talking. Both polite parallel sharing and polarized confrontation put our differences on display, and also our unwillingness to engage with difference. Divisions remain entrenched. Communicating in dialogic space in our classrooms prepares us to participate in a democratic, inclusive, and civil society.

Our classrooms are not isolated communities. We are impacted by the often fear-inducing, politicized discourses in society-at-large shaping the what and how of a narrowing curriculum. What’s more, the pressures on teachers to efficiently cover a strategy or content-focus can create an oppressive sense of never-enough-time to nurture relationships with thinking and learning that embrace nuance, tension, complexity, and different voices. In too many classroom contexts, instead of cultivating a joy in exploring ideas with others in respectful and robust ways, material is delivered to students and then, “we’re moving on.” In contrast, the articles in this special issue show classroom communities as spaces for [re]reading and [re]interpreting together as they lean into differences among our ideas and perspectives.

Curriculum choices and communicative practices — such as helping students learn how to do dialogue — serve and instantiate particular value-orientations and relations (Aukerman & Boyd, 2019; Bakhtin, 1981). That is, what and how we learn together signals what we hold important, as well as the roles, relationships, and responses available to us. For example, decisions about classroom materials and activities shape what we learn about and what is valued. Two articles in this special issue show how teacher decision-making about curriculum can provide content that engages with difference and potentially encourages dialogic space. King, Boyd, and Reid discuss how purposefully selected diverse children’s literature can invite different stories, identities, perspectives, and experiences into dialogue in a US graduate class. Witte and Juzwik show how letters and letter-writing can become boundary objects that connect people across different social locations — in this case, US elementary school students and a correspondent in prison.

Teachers’ repertoires of classroom communicative practices make visible our investment [or lack thereof] in the project of dialogic space. They signal who gets to contribute and what kind of communication is expected. Questions raised by authors in this special issue include: Does the repertoire of classroom talk practices include robust opportunities and time to explore different ideas and perspectives? Who gets to have interpretive authority and how is that signaled? Are there particular and privileged ways of seeing and reasoning? Answers to these questions influence the likelihood of student participation in dialogic space in our classrooms. Three articles in this special issue focus on avoiding absolutes when we express ideas and perspectives. They show how consistent use of a language of possibility (e.g., “might,””what if.”) can suggest multiple ways of seeing and knowing, and can signal a desire for dialogic space. Maine provides examples of UK elementary students talking about paintings to showcase the provisional nature of language of possibility, and how it allows speakers to hedge claims when exploring ideas — both accommodating a speaker who might be less confident and allowing for a fluid space where multiple possibilities can exist. Boyd, Vasquez, and Monaco show how language of possibility and “response-able” talk in a US second-grade classroom community are partial markers of a dialogic discourse modality that supports exploration of differences by inviting contributions and engaging with them in ways that can deepen and widen understandings. And Kim shows how dialogic space can be widened and deepened as part of a pedagogy of argumentation in US secondary English Language Arts classes.

Simply using a language of possibility does not result in the creation of dialogic space. However, its consistent use across communicative activities can be a partial marker of conditions where dialogic space might emerge. Two articles in this issue take up this broader focus on conditions and behaviors engendering dialogic space. Bouton, Lefstein, Segal, and Snell compare 2 lesson episodes in Israel and the UK to show how the everyday strategies associated with dialogic pedagogy do not automatically create dialogic space. They argue this is okay and discuss classroom management challenges associated with dialogic space. They highlight the importance of playfulness and mutual attunement for maneuvering within dialogic space. Skaftun further elaborates these challenges of dialogic space, describing how teachers in a Norwegian primary classroom must be both inside and outside the unfolding of a lesson, facilitating the co-creation of dialogic space, but also subject to its uncertainty.

The challenges of negotiating dialogic space extend beyond the immediate social interactions of classroom discussions. Contributions to this special issue also address questions about where and when dialogic space can emerge. In what types of communication can it manifest? And perhaps most importantly, what does my participation mean for who I can become? Sherry, Dunn, and O’Brien examine how dialogic space was manifest through the use of written chat during a synchronous video call as White US prospective secondary teachers tried out new perspectives on Black language and linguistic racism. Rojas-Drummond, Trigo-Clapés, Rubio-Jimenez, Hernández, and Márquez show that dialogic space may be an indicator of how well institutions implement and appropriate dialogic practices promoted by professional development programs in Mexican primary schools. These articles demonstrate that dialogic space can permeate and hold influence across different modes and physical locations. Moreover, these contributions suggest that dialogic space shapes and is shaped by participants’ assumptions about themselves and others.

To challenge assumptions can be deepening but also destabilizing. We know how unsettling it can feel to publicly embrace uncertainty and engage with other and different ideas and voices. It takes courage to set aside the “self” and actively listen to the ‘other’– or to reimagine both.

Another personal story might help to illustrate the challenges that can prompt us to pursue dialogic space. Mike was teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to his 8th grade students. They had been talking about monologue and Mike transitioned to dialogue with, “So, if a monologue is one person talking by themselves, then a dialogue is … ?” A student sardonically responded, “Two people talking by themselves?”

The articles in this special issue invite teachers to support our classrooms to move beyond people talking by themselves. They elucidate discourse conditions that signal investment in the project of dialogic space and that support the likelihood of us participating, as well as discourse practices that might sustain dialogic space and its deepening and widening. They also illuminate challenges associated with dialogic space in elementary, middle, high school, and teacher education classrooms in the US, UK, Israel, Norway, and Mexico. They speak to how the selection of curriculum material, the unfolding of moment-by-moment interactions, the [re]arrangement of classroom routines, and the negotiation of institutional policies might support behaviors that create dialogic space. They show communication in dialogic space across time, distance, boundary objects, and virtual modes. Across these articles, the theoretical framings of Bakhtin, Buber, and Wegerif underpin pedagogical practice. In the final article, Rupert Wegerif, whose articulation of dialogic space has been widely taken up by education researchers across disciplines and grade levels, engages with ideas and practices presented.

Acknowledgments

Maureen thanks Don for on-going dialogic space.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).