Bakhtin’s Theory of Dialogue - A Construct for Pedagogy, Methodology and Analysis - Abstract

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa

This article applies Bakhtin’s theorisation of language as dialogue to examine young students’ struggle with discourses of ethnicity within a Studies of Asia curriculum project. Bakhtin’s productive and ethical view of dialogue serves as the theoretical, pedagogical, methodological, and analytic construct across the study. The work highlights dialogic pedagogy, questions of power and difference, participants’ ideological becoming, and a fine-grained linguistic analysis of spoken and embodied voices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

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Pages20

Reading Time50 min

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Abstract

Introduction

Studies of Asia curriculum context

Postcolonial language and discourse

Bakhtin’s Theory of Dialogue: A Construct for Pedagogy, Methodology and Analysis Julie Hamston University of Melbourne Abstract This article describes the application of Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986a,b) theorisation of language as dialogue to the study of young students’ struggle with discourses of ethnicity within the context of a Studies of Asia curriculum project (Hamston 2003) . Bakhtin’s rich conceptualisation of the productive and ethical nature of dialogue has operated at all levels in this study as a theoretical, pedagogical, methodological and analytic research construct. It is hoped that the description of the research provided here contributes to the field of discourse-based research in several key ways. First and foremost, the model of dialogic pedagogy central to the research was informed by Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986a,b) belief in the moral responsibility of language and thus resonated with the need in complex and changing global and local conditions for education as ‘good work’(Carlson 1997a,b, 2002, Gardner et al. 1999, Luke & Carpenter 2003, Willinsky, 1998) . As researcher/teacher in this study, I situated at the centre of the research the kinds of questions that relate to what Weis and Fine (2003) define as issues of power, privilege, standpoint, knowledge and difference. Secondly, the dialogic nature of the data collected over time allowed for a nuanced and complex portrait of the key research participants’‘ideological becoming’ (Bakhtin 1981) and brought to the fore the different social ‘voices’ that they chose to speak through. Finally, the location of discourses in the students’ spoken and embodied language through a fine-grained linguistic analysis resonated with Bakhtin’s (1986a) call for a profound understanding of language. Introduction The study outlined here took place with 26 students in one Year 5 classroom at Parkview Grammar – a private Anglican girls’ school in Melbourne. The students The Australian Educational Researcher, Volume 33, Number 1, April 2006 •55 JULIE HAMSTON participated in a ten-week Studies of Asia curriculum project that exposed them to multiple representations of colonial Australia; to competing discourses of ‘Australia’,‘Asia’ and the ‘Asian presence’ in Australia; and to enduring practices of racial superiority in Australia (see Singh 1995a) . Studies of Asia is a field of curriculum studies designed to develop students’ understanding of the peoples and cultures of Asia, the significance of Asia-Australia relations, and the contributions of Asian peoples to Australian culture and society.1 As a national curriculum initiative, Studies of Asia has aimed to problematise both Australia’s colonial past and its recent history as a nation-state in the Asian region and has encouraged the development of a language with which to counter Orientalist perspectives on ‘Asia’ and ‘Australia’(Singh 1995a, after Said 1995) . The framing of Studies of Asia as a postcolonial project (Singh 1995a,b) is similar to the postcolonial pedagogy advocated by Carlson (1997a,b) in the United States and Willinsky (1998) in Canada. Studies of Asia curriculum has presented Australian educators and students with an important context within which to examine the anti-Asia legacy of colonial Australia and to develop a language constitutive of the new ethnicities that characterise Australia as a postcolonial nation state. This process of ‘re-imagining’ Australia, however, is not new. Australian education has long developed rich and productive multicultural curriculum that has advocated inclusiveness and the valuing of cultural diversity [for example, Kalantzis et al. 1990] . However, in recent decades, governments and educators have aimed to redress the relative absence of an Asian perspective in the curriculum as a means of acknowledging the significant role that Asia has and will play in Australia’s past, present and future (Asia Education Foundation 1999, FitzGerald 1990, 1994, Keating 2000, Rizvi

FAQs

What theoretical framework guides the study?

The study is guided by Bakhtin’s theorisation of language as dialogue, emphasizing its productive and ethical nature.

What setting and participant group does the introduction describe?

The study involves 26 students in a Year 5 classroom at Parkview Grammar and a ten-week Studies of Asia curriculum project.

How does the curriculum project relate to ethnicity and discourse?

The project exposes students to multiple representations of colonial Australia and competing discourses of Australia, Asia, and the Asian presence, highlighting enduring practices of racial superiority.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa