Dialogic teaching: towards reconfiguring classroom talk about sexuality

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Robin Alexander’s theory and method of ‘Dialogic Teaching’, this paper engages with debates about the need to reconceptualise the teaching of sexuality education. By exploring the complexities of educating about sex and sexuality it calls for attention to be paid to the how patterns of talk may function to open up spaces for more robust pedagogies. Dialogic Teaching is presented as providing opportunities to mitigate the ideological conflict endemic to sexuality education today. Using examples of classroom conversations between a teacher and his group of students involved in a recent Australian study this paper critically analyzes one teacher’s opportunities (or missed opportunities) for dialogic teaching, including opportunities for students to explore, challenge, reconsider, extend and enhance their learning of the myriad and complex issues relevant to sexuality such as negotiation and consent, pleasure and desire. As a form of pedagogical ethics, dialogic teaching offers a radical model for the future teaching of sexuality education.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogic teaching
• pedagogy
• sexuality education
• classroom talk
• sexual pleasure
• desire

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Program grant [DP110101173]. This was the first time the ARC funded research on sexuality and secondary schooling in Australia.