The social engineering of civility in a progressive middle school

Abstract

This paper discusses the efforts of teachers at a progressive U.S. middle school to socially engineer the ontology of a group of 7th and 8th grade girls to become more inclusive in their relationships with their peers. I argue that this effort was authoritative and that the teacher-promoted civility discourse usurped students' genuine dialogic investigation of the realities faced in their relationships with each other. In response to these social engineering efforts, I discuss the need for ontological, eventful dialogue as characterised by Bakhtin's (1999) notion of internally persuasive discourse to sensitively and meaningfully address interpersonal conflict and social exclusion.