In an increasingly monologic world of war, exploitation and fear of “the other”, dialogue within and between humans, and with the world around us, is critical to a humane future. This book explores dialogue and learning in theory, practice and praxis across a spectrum of lifelong education contexts. It develops a philosophical basis by examining the lives, works and dialogic traditions of four key thinkers: Socrates, Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin and Paulo Freire. It then examines dialogue and learning in contexts ranging from early childhood development to adult, community and higher education. In doing so, it develops and illustrates the innovative concepts of dialogic space, boundary learning and diacognition. It has a specific focus on learners and learning in contexts of oppression and marginality, and with a view to personal and social emancipation. It is located in an African context, specifically South Africa, although its resonance is both local and global. The book marks an innovative contribution to our understanding of dialogue and learning, framed by the great dialogic traditions of the past, and is a dialogical provocation to the ongoing generation of praxis. “This book is valuable for grounding lifelong learning experiences within an African context. It underlines the complexities involved in carrying out ‘authentic’ dialogue at different stages of education in Africa throughout the lifespan, exploring cases of border crossing and boundary maintenance.” – Peter Mayo, University of Malta and Series Editor of the International Issues in Adult Education Series

In an increasingly monologic world of war, exploitation and fear of "the other," dialogue within and between humans, and with the world around us, is critical to a humane future. This book explores dialogue and learning in theory, practice and praxis across a spectrum of lifelong education contexts. It develops a philosophical basis by examining the lives, works and dialogic traditions of four key thinkers: Socrates, Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin and Paulo Freire. It then examines dialogue and learning in contexts ranging from early childhood development to adult, community and higher education. In doing so, it develops and illustrates the innovative concepts of dialogic space, boundary learning and diacognition. It has a specific focus on learners and learning in contexts of oppression and marginality, and with a view to personal and social emancipation. It is located in an African context, specifically South Africa, although its resonance is both local and global. The book marks an innovative contribution to our understanding of dialogue and learning, framed by the great dialogic traditions of the past, and is a dialogical provocation to the ongoing generation of praxis. "This book is valuable for grounding lifelong learning experiences within an African context. It underlines the complexities involved in carrying out 'authentic' dialogue at different stages of education in Africa throughout the lifespan, exploring cases of border crossing and boundary maintenance." - Peter Mayo, University of Malta and Series Editor of the International Issues in Adult Education Series

Teaching Dialogue Interpreting is one of the very few book-length contributions that cross the research-to-training boundary in dialogue interpreting. The volume is innovative in at least three ways. First, it brings together experts working in areas as diverse as business interpreting, court interpreting, medical interpreting, and interpreting for the media, who represent a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches. Second, it addresses instructors and course designers in higher education, but may also be used for refresher courses and/or retraining of in-service interpreters and bilingual staff. Third, and most important, it provides a set of resources, which, while research driven, are also readily usable in the classroom – either together or separately – depending on specific training needs and/or research interests. The collection thus makes a significant contribution in curriculum design for interpreter education.

"This book explores how narratives are deeply embodied, engaging heart, soul, as well as mind, through varying adult learner perspectives. Biographical research is not an isolated, individual, solipsistic endeavor but shaped by larger ecological interactions - in families, schools, universities, communities, societies, and networks - that can create or destroy hope. Telling or listening to life stories celebrates complexity, messiness, and the rich potential of learning lives. The narratives in this book highlight the rapid disruption of sustainable ecologies, not only 'natural', physical, and biological, but also psychological, economic, relational, political, educational, cultural, and ethical. Yet, despite living in a precarious, and often frightening, liquid world, biographical research can both chronicle and illuminate how resources of hope are created in deeper, aesthetically satisfying ways. Biographical research offers insights, and even signposts, to understand and transcend the darker side of the human condition, alongside its inspirations. Discourses, Dialogue and Diversity in Biographical Research aims to generate insight into people's fears and anxieties but also their capacity to 'keep on keeping on' and to challenge forces that would diminish their and all our humanity. It provides a sustainable approach to creating sufficient hope in individuals and communities by showing how building meaningful dialogue, grounded in social justice, can create good enough experiences of togetherness across difference. The book illuminates what amounts to an ecology of life, learning and human flourishing in a sometimes tortured, fractious, fragmented, and fragile world, yet one still offering rich resources of hope"--

Contemporary researchers have analysed dialogue primarily in terms of instruction, conversation or inquiry. There is an irreducible tension when the terms ‘dialogue’ and ‘instruction’ are brought together, because the former implies an emergent process of give-and-take, whereas the latter implies a sequence of predetermined moves. It is argued that effective teachers have learned how to perform in this contradictory space to both follow and lead, to be both responsive and directive, to require both independence and receptiveness from learners. Instructional dialogue, therefore, is an artful performance rather than a prescribed technique. Dialogues also may be structured as conversations which function to build consensus, conformity to everyday ritualistic practices, and a sense of community. The dark side of the dialogic ‘we’ and the community formed around ‘our’ and ‘us’ is the inevitable boundary that excludes ‘them’ and ‘theirs’. When dialogues are structured to build consensus and community, critical reflection on the bases of that consensus is required and vigilance to ensure that difference and diversity are not being excluded or assimilated (see Renshaw, 2002). Again it is argued that there is an irreducible tension here because understanding and appreciating diversity can be achieved only through engagement and living together in communities. Teachers who work to create such communities in their classrooms need to balance the need for common practices with the space to be different, resistant or challenging – again an artful performance that is difficult to articulate in terms of specific teaching techniques.

Dialogue has long been used in primary classrooms to stimulate thinking, but it is not always easy to unite the creative thinking of good dialogue with the need for children to understand the core concepts behind knowledge-rich subjects. A sound understanding of key concepts is essential to progress through the national curriculum, and assessment of this understanding along with effective feedback is central to good practice. Dialogic Education builds upon decades of practical classroom research to offer a method of teaching that applies the power of dialogue to achieving conceptual mastery. Easy-to-follow template lesson plans and activity ideas are provided, each of which has been tried and tested in classrooms and is known to succeed. Providing a structure for engaging children and creating an environment in which dialogue can flourish, this book is separated into three parts: Establishing a classroom culture of learning; Core concepts across the curriculum; Wider dialogues: Educational adventures in the conversation of mankind. Written to support all those in the field of primary education, this book will be an essential resource for student, trainee and qualified primary teachers interested in the educational importance of dialogue.

This book takes the works of Mikhail Bakhtin as its inspiration in the contemplation of the potential of dialogic scholarship for philosophy of education. While Bakhtin’s work has been widely received in educational studies in recent years, the academic literature does not sufficiently convey the sophistication of his cultural-historical works. Selected works on the limits and perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin are presented in the book. In doing so, the contributors seek to interpret the work of the Bakhtin Circle in a complex contemporary world. Layering and drawing from the many ideas explored by the Circle during their collective lifetimes and those that influenced their work, each chapter offers a different dimension of thought concerning issues facing societies remote (or perhaps not so remote) from the world of post-revolutionary Russia. In the post-2008 era, during which financial crises have morphed into global recession and which characterise growing social inequities, widespread political instabilities and further environmental decline and resource depletion, what is needed more than ever is a twenty-first century Bakhtin, one that is occupied with the distinct challenges our times present to all of us. The individual contributors to Bakhtin in the Fullness of Time aim to contribute to a revisioning and reassessment of Bakhtin, through a diverse series of engagements with both his legacy and future promise. In contemplating Bakhtin in the fullness of time, historical perspectives and contributions must be encountered in a contemporary understanding that will contribute to philosophy of education today. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Teacher Education and Practice, a peer-refereed journal, is dedicated to the encouragement and the dissemination of research and scholarship related to professional education. The journal is concerned, in the broadest sense, with teacher preparation, practice and policy issues related to the teaching profession, as well as being concerned with learning in the school setting. The journal also serves as a forum for the exchange of diverse ideas and points of view within these purposes. As a forum, the journal offers a public space in which to critically examine current discourse and practice as well as engage in generative dialogue. Alternative forms of inquiry and representation are invited, and authors from a variety of backgrounds and diverse perspectives are encouraged to contribute. Teacher Education & Practice is published by Rowman & Littlefield.

"This book explores an eminently human phenomenon: our capacity to engage with the possible, to go beyond what is present, visible or given in our existence. Possibility studies are today an emerging field of research including topics as diverse as creativity, imagination, innovation, anticipation, counterfactual thinking, wondering, the future, social change, hope, agency and utopia. The present contribution to this wide field is represented by a sociocultural and pragmatist account of the possible grounded in the notions of difference, position, perspective, dialogue, action and culture. Put simply, this theory proposes that our explorations of the possible are enabled by the human capacity to relate to the world from more than one position and perspective and understand that any perspective we hold is, at all times, one among many. Such an account transcends the long-standing dichotomy between the possible and the real, a sterile separation that ends up portraying possibility as separate from and even opposed to reality. On the contrary, the theory of the possible advanced here goes back to this notion's etymological roots (the Latin possibilis "that can be done", from posse "to be able") and considers it as both a precondition and outcome of human action and interaction. Exploring the possible doesn't take place outside of or in addition to our experience of the world; rather, it infiltrates it from the start, infuses it with new meanings and ends up transforming it altogether. This book aims to offer conceptual, methodological and practical tools for all those interested in studying human possibility and cultivating it in education, at the workplace, in everyday life and in society"--

This book empowers people to go beyond themselves into new spheres of learning, thinking and creativity. Drawing on recent work in communications theory as well as psychology, computer science and philosophy, it reveals some key characteristics of learning dialogues. It also demonstrates ways in which computers and networks can deepen, enrich and expand such dialogues. The book’s central argument is that this dialogic perspective in education and the latest developments in information and communications technology make ideal partners.