Dialogic pedagogy aims to promote deliberative democratic skills, virtues and practices within an equitable and empowering classroom environment. This article problematizes the practice of setting classroom ground rules in light of dialogic pedagogy's democratic aspirations. Specifically, we explore the space for dissenting voices within the…

Research in educational linguistics is now challenging the efficacy of monolingual approaches that often dominate educational practices in multilingual settings. In most African nations where multilingualism is the norm, there remains a persistent reluctance by educational stakeholders (principals, teachers, parents, and students) to embrace…

Classroom research has largely focused on an "instructional discourse" in local classroom contexts where teachers and students interact about subject knowledge. Few studies have been conducted, however, to examine "regulative discourse", which is the precondition for the transmission of subject knowledge. In this article,…

Ways are discussed that education and the discourse practices it authorizes can routinely repress, dominate, and disempower language users whose practices differ from the norms that it establishes. The ideas of two key theorists, Bourdieu and Bhaskar, are linked and applied to such issues as schooling, high status language, and minority discursive…

In this paper, a case study of women's incipient literacy in Junigau, Nepal, I argue that literacy can be both a catalyst for social change and a result of numerous other types of social transformation. The increase in female literacy rates in Junigau in the 1990s made possible the emergence of new courtship practices involving love letters and…

Investigates the effects of tutor gender in interaction patterns in postgraduate university seminars and focuses on the discourse patterns of two of these classes. The female tutor used more minimal responses and called on students more often by name and gaze than the male tutor; she occupied less floor-space than the male tutor, and her speaking…