Abstract
This chapter presents an analysis of dialogic learning during mathematics lessons in a multicultural school in the Netherlands. The students, native Dutch students and students with mainly Moroccan and Turkish backgrounds, are accustomed to collaborate in groups of four or five. The analysis is based on recordings of the students’ dialogues. The students’ collaboration proceeded according to either a symmetric or an asymmetric collaboration mode. The symmetric mode allowed students to participate, in principle, on an equal basis, whereas in the asymmetric mode one child adopted the role of tutor and taught the other students. In both modes, Dutch students, although a minority in the classroom, dominated the interaction. Non-native students appeared to have a preference for the symmetric interaction mode. We interpret the dialogic positions taken by the students as ways to express their identities2.
The research reported in this chapter was funded by the Programming Council for Educational Research (PROO) of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
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Elbers, E., de Haan, M. (2004). Dialogic Learning in the Multi-Ethnic Classroom. In: van der Linden, J., Renshaw, P. (eds) Dialogic Learning. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-1931-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-1931-9_2
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