Multimodal and multilingual resources in children's framing of situated learning activities: An introduction

Abstract

The papers in this Special Issue respond to pivotal developmental theories (Piaget, 1932/1997; Vygotsky, 1978) arguing for the importance of dialogic processes and peer interaction in children's learning. They examine how children build action and participate together in various problem-solving activities with others in their classrooms and family homes and agricultural fields, focusing on how these interactions unfold moment-to-moment in their material environments. The approach we take is grounded in conversational analysis (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) and brings together complementary frameworks of “situated learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991), “participation” (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004) and “epistemic ecologies” (Erickson, 2004; C. Goodwin, 2013; Goodwin & Goodwin, 2012) to study the situated, temporally unfolding, collaborative, and public nature of learning. Building upon traditions of linguistic anthropological research and research on classroom interaction, we use ethnography to place local practices within the range of practices that are possible for the particular peer groups, classrooms, and communities studied (Erickson, 2004; M.H. Goodwin, 2006a). Lastly, we provide an overview of the individual contributions to the issue and the central themes they present.