The moral journey of learning a pedagogy: a qualitative exploration of student–teachers’ formal and informal writing of dialogic pedagogy

Abstract

Students of education encounter a range of pedagogies yet how future teachers’ appropriate moral principles are little understood. We conducted an investigation into this process with 10 international students of education attending an intensive course on ‘dialogic pedagogy’ in a university in Finland. The data comprising student learning journals and essays were coded for the level of questioning, acceptance and irreverence. In the findings, reverential acceptance was more frequent than questioning and irreverence; however, our qualitative analysis also found a large number of micro-transitions between questioning, acceptance and irreverence suggesting a dynamic interplay. Recognising this vacillation as part of a moral journey may support better understanding of what it means to engage with a different pedagogy.

Keywords:

• dialogic pedagogy
• learning journals
• zone of proximal development
• dialogical approach to qualitative analysis