Engaged voices—dialogic interaction and the construction of shared social meanings

Abstract

The notion of ‘pupil voice’ reproduces the binary distinction between adult and child, pupil and teacher and therefore serves to reinforce ‘conventional’ constructions of childhood. The concept of ‘voice’ invokes an essentialist construction of self that is singular, coherent, consistent and rational. It is arguably more useful to reflect on self and identity as socially constructed, hybrid and multiple. This paper will critically interrogate ‘pupil voice’, offering instead the notion of the ‘engaged voices’ of children and adults, students and teachers, operating within an intertextual, highly provisional discursive space. The paper will use Bakhtin and Voloshinov’s theories, arguing that dialogism provides the basis for an exploration of the construction of shared social meanings which replaces idealist and psychologist location of meaning in the individual psyche or self. The paper will focus on the ‘social event[s] of verbal interaction’ as sites of struggle of different social languages and ideological belief systems (heteroglossia) in the production of shared social meanings. This concept is useful for educators and researchers engaging in participatory action research with children and young people—it is in the process of making and negotiating shared social meanings that we move imperfectly towards jointly conceived understandings of personhood and community.