Researching learning across context: From Dichotomies to a Dialogic Approach

Abstract

This article is situated in a body of research focusing on students' learning in and across contexts. Drawing on the dialogic approach, it calls for the importance of understanding learning as a dialogue between contexts of discourse that create and disclose opportunities for engagement and learning. I will exemplify the dialogic approach to researching learning as a dialogue between various contexts of discourse by drawing on empirical data stemming from a case study on elementary school students' online interaction during creative collaborative writing. I will illuminate how students' discourses embedded in diverse contexts were managed, negotiated, and hybridized during their academic work, producing opportunities and tensions for their engagement and learning. The article finishes by pointing out future directions for research on the intersections and disjunctures of learning across contexts from the dialogic perspective.