Houen2016

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Houen2016
BibType ARTICLE
Key Houen2016
Author(s) Sandy Houen, Susan Danby, Ann Farrell, Karen Thorpe
Title Creating spaces for children's agency: “I wonder...” formulations in teacher/child interactions
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, formulations, teacher-child interaction, children
Publisher
Year 2016
Language English
City
Month
Journal International Journal of Early Childhood
Volume 48
Number 3
Pages 259–276
URL Link
DOI 10.1007/s13158-016-0170-4
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Affording children’s agency is an important pedagogical underpinning of a high-quality early childhood program. Yet little is known about how teachers’ interactions create spaces for children’s agency. From the perspectives of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this paper investigates how teachers and children navigate agency through their collaborative interactions that relate to classroom participation. Drawing on 170 h of video recordings of classroom interactions in nine preschool classrooms, this paper discusses the teachers’ use of ‘I wonder…’ formulations in their interactions with children. In total, there were 17 occasions where the teachers used this formulation to create a space for agency for children to make decisions regarding their participation in classroom experiences. The ‘I wonder…’ formulation is suggested as a strategy for teachers to use when inviting classroom participation at times when children really do have a choice. These findings contribute to understanding children’s agency and point to practical strategies for teachers to afford children agency within the bounds of classroom life. Building and using a repertoire of pedagogic strategies to encourage child participation and agency is demonstrable evidence of high-quality teacher–child interactions.

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