Turning educational ideas into meaningful learning requires planning for uncertainty. This article presents Bakhtin's key concept of "eventness" as an essential aspect of defining dialogic space. To Bakhtin an event is something happening here and now, with a degree of open-ended uncertainty tied to what will happen next. Acknowledging…

This article argues that provisional language is important for creating a dialogic space between speakers, where ideas are open for discussion; where participants respect each other's viewpoints; and where the goal is to encourage and explore multiple perspectives. Whilst much of the research on children's talk in the classroom focuses on the…

What is the role of teachers in constructing loving dialogic space that is liminal in nature? How can curricular boundary objects catalyze new dialogic spaces connecting people in different social locations? Illuminating these questions, Ms. Thompson opened new doors for elementary students in an urban Reformed Christian school community, inviting…

This article reports the results of an empirical investigation on teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning and the globalised world as a teaching subject. Following a qualitative reconstructive approach, the study investigated how teachers' beliefs and the way teachers address the complexity of sustainability issues relate to each other.…

Scholars have argued that problem formulation is an important part of successfully initiating a Networked Improvement Community (NIC/s). Yet, few scholars have studied the problem formulation process at the beginning of a NIC. This study draws upon problem formulation literature to examine how district initiators in one NIC identify and make sense…

A number of scholars within the social sciences and the humanities have elaborated on the cultural and psychological dimensions of living through social, economic and political crises. Still, developments during the last decade have created an awareness that something fundamental of the human condition is at stake, especially for the young…

Collegiate environments that aim to support equitable learning are rarely conceptualized and studied in a manner that is explicitly relational and structural, leaving room for theorizing about how social constructions of meaning and power operate on campus. We apply social network theory and methods to campus ecological frameworks to develop a…

Text sets (also referred to as linked text sets, multimodal texts, thematic texts, multi texts, focus units, reading across texts, and paired readings or sets) are utilized in classrooms to promote reading, learning, and understanding of multiple perspectives. There has not been an analysis of studies on text sets or on the wide-ranging effects of…

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is often associated with impaired perspective-taking skills. Deception is an important indicator of perspective-taking, and therefore may be thought to pose difficulties to people with ASD (e.g., Baron-Cohen in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 3:1141-1155, 1992). To test this hypothesis, we asked participants with and…

There has been an increased emphasis for professionals within the field of student affairs to focus on programming that will engage and help support increasingly diverse student populations on (Odag, Wallin, & Kedzior, 2016). Bowman (2012) writes: "Many entering college students have had limited opportunities for meaningful interactions…

The comprehension of signed language requires linguistic and visual-spatial processing, such as perspective-taking for correctly interpreting the layout of a spatial scene. However, little is known about how adult second-language (L2) learners process visual-spatial constructions in a signed language that they are studying, including which angles…

During collaborative small group problem-solving, a group member with a minority perspective has a notable influence on the majority's perspective. However, the type of interactions with such a member could influence a stalemate, and the relationships between internal and task conflicts and the convergence process remain unclear. This study…

This is a narrative inquiry of Dr. Joan Wynne's transformative leadership in education that traces the roots of Wynne's social justice activism and rich descriptions and examples of her transformative leadership qualities. Akin to a Russian doll, integrity is the overall case within which all of Wynne's transformative leadership qualities…

This final article in this special issue on dialogic space discusses some of the themes raised and points towards the future. It begins with a brief recollection of how the idea of dialogic space as a guide to teaching began in the 1990s in research on classroom talk. The articles in this issue show some of the ways in which the use of dialogic…

This article discusses classroom conditions that support the co-creation of dialogic space--where our different ideas and perspectives are in conversation with others such that we might take in what other people are saying and be open to it affecting our thinking. Drawing on ethnographic case study data, we provide context to illustrate ways this…