Social Interaction in Learning and Instruction The Meaning of Discourse for the Construction of Knowledge

This exciting new text examines how knowledge is socially constructed and shared through discursive interactions within the classroom community. The contributors discuss the meaning of the cognitive, emotional and social discourses that exist between teachers and learners and suggest how teachers can create an effective learning partnership to stimulate children. The authors also consider how children, in turn, construe the curriculum and how they perceive the ground-rules and peer-relationships within the classroom community. By reporting findings from state-of-the-art studies in a range of Western cultural contexts, the authors are able to overview key theoretical perspectives and synthesise the methods currently being developed for measuring social interaction in learning and instruction.