Sharing pedagogical documentation with others: exploring issues of addressivity and voice

ABSTRACT

Pedagogical documentation is a text of multiple voices and audiences. Building on this idea, the study presented here aimed to explore to what degree and in what ways teachers’ writing is shaped or constrained by their anticipation of parents as readers of documentation. Bakhtin’s concept of addressivity was used to frame teacher–parent relationships as part of an always present, ongoing dialogue that influences teacher voice and choices in pedagogical documentation. Interviews with teachers and analysis of child portfolios indicate that teachers were aware of parents as an audience, and this awareness was reflected in the discursive practices they use. The discussion of the choices teachers made regarding what to include or not in portfolios puts forward the argument that the development of teacher’s voice in pedagogical documentation involves, among other things, an awareness of how self is related to parents. Finding the balance between the self and the other in pedagogical documentation is an issue that needs to be critically addressed in professional learning opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Bakhtin
• addressivity
• pedagogical documentation
• portfolio
• early childhood education

Disclosure statement

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