The Mimetic and Representational Character of Gestures in Education. A Case Study in a Berlin Inner-City School

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the important role of gestures in child-rearing and socialization. Reflecting upon gestures reveals not only their special medial nature but also their potential. Thus, rather than highlighting gestures alone, we want to elaborate a broader concept of gesturality. In classroom interactions, gestures become significant as part of an educational tableau. They need to be observed in educational situations to complement existing insights into the meaning of bodily behavior and to stimulate a revival of related educational traditions. Our ethnographic approach to studying gestures in education differs from other disciplines. As important as these studies are, many of them measure the role and significance of gestures solely on the basis of semiotic and semantic criteria, and thus fail to capture their pragmatic aspects. Our ethnographic research on gestures aims to investigate the corporeality, the mimetic and performative character of gestures, and furthermore to depict the involvement of gestural forms of expression in the constitution of social life. In the following sections, we will develop four dimensions which are of major importance in education and social science research: gestures as (1) movements of the body, (2) expression and representation, (3) means of child-rearing and education, (4) ways of creating meaning. These dimensions revolve around several anthropological characteristics which have received little attention in the research of gestures to date, and which also add dimensions and categories that are important in the educational sciences, thereby expanding the existing discourses.