Promoting dialogical critical thinking in education: examining teachers’ practices and conceptualizations in the Norwegian school context

Abstract

ABSTRACT The importance of Critical Thinking (CT), as a set of central competences for future and present citizens and as a prerequisite for a participative democratic life, is today beyond question. However, teachers seem relatively poorly equipped to teach CT, having both theoretical and methodological needs. In this paper, we examine how teachers’ practices and conceptualizations towards the implementation of CT have evolved during the first three years of an EU-financed collaborative teacher development project named CLAE (Critical Literacies and Awareness in Education (2017–2022)). We investigate a series of two interviews with 5 primary school teachers working in Norway (grades 5–7). Research findings show that teachers consider pupils’ involvement as a central prerequisite for the implementation of CT in practice. They also highlight two different ‘teaching paths’ among teachers when implementing CT. The first one emphasizes the development of dialogical activities, whereas the second one facilitates the development of metacognitive skills and awareness. These respective teaching paths do not oppose each other but constitute real complementary strategies through which teachers try to shape the class (the group of pupils) into an effective dialogic epistemic space.