Dialogic Pedagogy: A Journal for Studies of Dialogic Education

Why do students choose the option of the Open Syllabus in a conventional university?

Eugene Matusov — 2025-01-14

The purpose of the presented mixed qualitative-quantitative research is to examine college students’ diverse reasons for choosing the Open Syllabus, which allows students in a conventional university to define their goals for education, curriculum, instruction, assessment, ways of learning, and so on—what traditionally constitutes “Self-Directed Education.” Most of those students articulated their interest in self-education, which consists of self-directed and responsive education.

An educational program addressing tense intercultural communication between Japanese and Chinese students: A Bakhtinian perspective on dialogue and love

Atsushi Tajima — 2025-03-04

In today’s culturally diverse world, the ability to engage in effective communication with individuals from different backgrounds has become increasingly significant. In particular, overcoming emotional resistance when interacting with individuals from culturally distinct backgrounds is an important educational challenge. In this paper, we discuss the significance of educational practices that facilitate productive intercultural communication, drawing inspiration from the perspectives of the Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin, who valued “dialogues” between “others” who hold conflicting ideas about the same subject. Bakhtin valued the “outsideness” of others, recognizing it as a means to reveal the multifaceted nature of ideologies, which have been unquestionably accepted by individuals within the same cultural milieu. Additionally, he appreciated the positive atmosphere that could develop between speakers, which plays a key role in alleviating the emotional distress associated with reacting to perspectives from alien cultural backgrounds as a significant factor in promoting meaningful dialogues. Based on Bakhtin’s insights, we designed an experimental educational approach to mediate conflicting ideas between Japanese and Chinese university students by alleviating the emotional distress they experienced when faced with conflicting viewpoints. Thus, the research question of the present study is how we can promote participants’ critical investigations on each speaker’s conflictive cultural view and develop their abilities to bridge the gaps in culturally divided worldviews. After an analysis of these theories and empirical data, we comprehensively proposed strategies to enhance the quality of tense intercultural communication while discussing conflicting themes. Promoting positive emotions toward partners, consistent with the concept of “professional love” proposed in this special issue, is regarded as one of the most crucial elements of our educational approach.

“They go hand in hand”: Dialogic pedagogy and linguistic belonging in two elementary classrooms

Lisel Alice Murdock-Perriera — 2025-03-24

Elementary school children bring a rich diversity of language to classrooms, a richness that often goes undervalued in educational settings in which teachers feel they must and do emphasize dominant ways of using English. The ways in which teachers interact with children about their language use can influence the linguistic belonging of children from nondominant linguistic backgrounds—their sense of being loved, valued, included, and recognized in positive ways for how they use and understand language. This work addresses connections between dialogic pedagogy and the belonging of multilingual children in two California, English-dominant elementary classrooms. The manuscript centers on the following questions: (1) How did teachers view dialogic instruction and plan dialogically? (2) What did dialogic instruction look like when enacted in these two classrooms? (3) How did dialogic instruction–including professional care and love for multilingual children–relate to the linguistic belonging of multilingual children in these two classrooms? The study concludes that these teachers saw dialogic instruction and the belonging of multilingual children as connected and that they worked hard to find space for dialogic instruction within scripted and district-planned curricula. During dialogic instruction, teachers accepted answers that were not conventionally correct, honored and demonstrated care for students and embraced multiple, diverse ways of expressing answers from their students, including affirming multilingual student language use that did not conform to dominant English standards. Dialogic pedagogy contributed to the belonging of multilingual children in these two classrooms.