Abstract:

This exploratory case study aims to understand how students navigate and co-construct meaning through diverse perspective-taking (PT) behavior in dialogic classroom interactions. We particularly examine self-organizing PT dynamics among students, a largely under-researched aspect. Utilizing sociocultural discourse analysis (SCDA) (Mercer, 2004) and a Retrodictive Qualitative Modeling (RQM) framework, we analyze dynamic PT behavior in two dialogic literature classrooms discussions (N= 20 students) through pre-tests, group discussions, and post-test responses in a two-phase research process. In the initial phase, the study revealed three distinct archetypes -Selective Integrators, Adaptive Integrators, and Passive Listeners- based on different levels of integration of others’ voice. The second phase involved tracing back the developmental trajectories of each archetype and examining the influence of teacher practices and the role of emerging problematizing environments on PT behavior. The findings suggest that differentiated PT behavior manifested in students’ utterance design corresponds with different levels of integration of situational emergent resources (other-centric/egocentric) and influence of each student’s privileged ground (initial idiosyncratic contact with the text). The study highlights that authorial learning (Matusov, 2011) in this context leads to the selective appropriation of others' perspectives, which is contingent upon differentiated intentions and attentional processing. This dynamic relationship is shaped by the emergent nature of problematizing environments and the teacher’s key didactic practices which functionally constraint collaborative meaning-making. Indicatively, Selective Integrators' initial egocentric PT behavior (reinforced by teacher’s didactic practices) acts as a kind of 'path' they've embarked on, affecting their subsequent interactions and the development of their perspectives. Over time, some of these students realize that their egocentric perspectives are often insufficient to address the generated problems, leading them to incorporate other-centric emergent situational resources in three key ways:
1) by appropriating concept(s) that better fit their argumentation or central perspective (e.g., an other-produced text indicator that illuminates the egocentric perspective better),
2) by utilizing different from ones’ own answer strategies in confronting a problematizing environment (e.g., utilization of literary device and/or text’s specific language in understanding a theme) and,
3) by utilizing others statement's (e.g., an other-inserted dimension of the text that illuminates current understanding).

The study underscores the need for dynamic teacher adaptability for the evolving dialogic system, including adjusting to students’ problem-solving, recognizing individual understanding differences, and managing shifting attention. Understanding a student's adherence to an original viewpoint enables teachers to employ discursive strategies to foster richer collective understanding. Intersubjective negotiation necessitates exploring diverse perspectives through differentiated semiotic resources, thereby enriching dialogic spaces, rather than presupposing shared understanding and agreement. The findings underscore the complexities of PT in dialogic self-organizing systems emphasizing the importance of considering differentiated intentionality and the interplay between individual and contextual factors.

Keywords:

Perspective-Taking, Dialogic Classroom, Self-Organizing Systems, Retrodictive Qualitative Modeling, Privileged Ground, Authorial Learning.