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Speaking but not listening? Accountable talk in an unaccountable context
Author(s) -
Alexander Robin
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1741-4369
pISSN - 1741-4350
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4369.2010.00562.x
Subject(s) - plea , dialogic , accountability , literacy , active listening , pedagogy , context (archaeology) , sociology , democracy , politics , citizen journalism , psychology , political science , law , communication , paleontology , biology
Taking the 2009 UKLA conference theme of “making connections and building literate communities” and recalling Hoggart's plea for literacy to be critically and morally engaged rather than merely functional, this paper calls for a reassessment of the pursuit of literacy in schools so as to connect the language of learning with the language of democratic participation. Given what we know about the way classroom talk mediates both learning and culture, the paper takes such talk as its focus, comparing the author's principles of dialogic teaching with Resnick's criteria for accountable talk. The paper then contrasts these idealised versions of the discourse of pedagogy with the public discourses of power, noting the prevalence of four discourse types – derision, dichotomy, myth and meaninglessness – through which, in pursuit of political goals, governments rewrite history, simplify the problematic, dignify the mundane and marginalise unpalatable evidence. This prompts an addition, in the interests of meaningful citizenship as well as effective learning, to Resnick's criteria of accountability to the learning community, standards of reasoning and knowledge: accountability to language itself.