Making Sense of Jargon During Consultation: Understanding Consultees' Social Language to Effect Change in Student Study Teams

Abstract

Student study teams (SSTs) ideally offer education professionals a means of collaborative, multidisciplinary problem solving to support the academic and behavioral success of students who are at risk for school failure. However, SSTs may in practice not be truly collaborative because they lack an embedded mechanism for group facilitation. This qualitative study investigated how a language-focused consultation approach was used to facilitate the problem identification stage of SSTs in two rural, southern elementary schools. The results indicate that a language-focused consultation affected the SSTs' problem-identification process, which was inhibited by members' use of jargon and slang. This article describes how consultation bridged conceptual gaps between members, scrutinized definitions of jargon and slang, and encouraged collaborative renegotiation of work problems' meanings.