Engaged voices—dialogic interaction and the construction of shared social meanings

Abstract

The notion of ‘pupil voice’ reproduces the binary distinction between adult and child, pupil and teacher and therefore serves to reinforce ‘conventional’ constructions of childhood. The concept of ‘voice’ invokes an essentialist construction of self that is singular, coherent, consistent and rational. It is arguably more useful to reflect on self and identity as socially constructed, hybrid and multiple. This paper will critically interrogate ‘pupil voice’, offering instead the notion of the ‘engaged voices’ of children and adults, students and teachers, operating within an intertextual, highly provisional discursive space. The paper will use Bakhtin and Voloshinov’s theories, arguing that dialogism provides the basis for an exploration of the construction of shared social meanings which replaces idealist and psychologist location of meaning in the individual psyche or self. The paper will focus on the ‘social event[s] of verbal interaction’ as sites of struggle of different social languages and ideological belief systems (heteroglossia) in the production of shared social meanings. This concept is useful for educators and researchers engaging in participatory action research with children and young people—it is in the process of making and negotiating shared social meanings that we move imperfectly towards jointly conceived understandings of personhood and community.

Keywords:

• Dialogism
• Bakhtin/Voloshinov
• Derrida
• Discourse
• Subjectivity
• Engaged voices

Notes

1. The statutory guidance proposes that this is in line with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In fact, the right in law set out in Article 12 states that ‘Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.’ Arguably, the statutory guidance does not reflect the spirit of this entitlement in law. It merely encourages the involvement of children and young people. Lundy (2007, in press) argues that the notion of student ‘voice’ is an inadequate concept for understanding and protecting the full legal rights of children and young people, as set out in Article 12.

2. On the highly contested question of Voloshinov and Bakhtin’s authorship of the publications on which this paper draws, I follow Matejka and Titunik’s position that Marxism and the philosophy of language is attributable to Voloshinov (1973), and The dialogic imagination to Bakhtin (1981).

3. I use voice and speech simultaneously as I am interested in the social event of verbal interaction rather than physiological or psyho‐physiological functions.

4. There is a danger—a pitfall—that ‘voice work’ in schools simply becomes an instrument of discipline and surveillance but this is the subject of another paper.