Social interaction and ethnography: A review of the concept of joint construction of knowledge in classroom talk-in-interaction

Abstract

As part of the growing area of studies investigating learning as a social phenomenon instantiated in interaction, this review article examines the concept of joint construction/production of knowledge in studies produced by the Social Interaction and Ethnography Research Group between 2006 and 2010. Such studies have analyzed segments of talk-in-interaction in various school settings in which participants reflexively demonstrate an understanding of learning as joint construction of knowledge. Although this expression is widespread in the studies examined, there are variations in how the activity is understood, particularly in relation to what distinguishes it from others. Thus, in order to systematize the understanding so far produced by the group, the present article investigates the use of this expression, and thus of its conceptual deployment, in such studies. It is observed that the notion of joint construction of knowledge: 1) is initially deployed in opposition to reproduction of knowledge; 2) then, in close association with participation and learning; 3) and finally in contrast with different understandings of socially shared cognition. The review highlights the caveat that joint construction of knowledge may be of a reproductive nature in certain pedagogical activities in which knowledge produced earlier is made available to all participants, even though in most segments analyzed as “doing learning” the activity presents itself as emerging from and contingent to the interactional work of the participants there and then. In every case, the joint construction of knowledge features intense interactional work and evident public engagement of many participants to classroom talk-in-interaction. Key words: joint construction of knowledge, classroom talk-in-interaction, learning, participation, socially shared cognition.