Educational objectives General aims. The course aims at providing the students with theories and methodologies
regarding the study of socialization practices in different educational contexts, and at developing
students’ skills in designing relevant socialization contexts involving both children and adults. The
course grounds onto a cultural, situated and interactionist perspective, which emphasizes the
concepts of participation, discursive competence and community of practices.
The course develops across two different modules: 1) Children and socialization to language; 2) )
Socialization processes and forms of participation in intercultural contexts.
Both modules include a theoretical and an applied section. The first module examines the main
theories of language socialization in a cultural perspective and particularly focuses on children’s
participation to conversational interactions in family, educational and peer contexts, also
examined across different cultures. The second module deepens, within a situated and
interactionist framework, forms of participation and the relationship between these forms and
results in learning and socialization to sociocultural competence in different intercultural contexts:
processes of socialization and inclusion of unaccompanied foreign minors will be examined,
together with their close interrelation with organizational dimension of the different hosting
contexts. Both modules provide students with research methodology including observational and
analytical methodology for the study of interactions in socialization in family and educational
contexts. Interview data, texts, video and transcripts of family interaction , interaction in
educational contexts and peer interaction will be examied, in order to identify different participant
structures, beneficial for the inclusion.
Both modules aim at fostering students’ skills in applying methodological research tools (such as,
interviews, observation and analysis of video and transcriptions of conversations) to design and
assess socialization practices in different domains. The expected learning outcome would be: to
know the main theoretical perspectives, and main research interdisciplinary areas, dealing with
socialization practices of children and adults; to know methodological research tools including
ethnographic observation and the analysis of discursive interaction for the study, the observation
and the assessment of socialization practices; to know how to analyze, within a cultural and
interactionist perspective, the socialization processes in different educational contexts, both
formal and informal; to learn about the main epistemological frameworks in socio-psychological
research and to learn how to apply methods and tools of situated, qualitative research to the
analysis, the design and the assessment of practices of socialization that may enrich the novices’
participation in specific educational contexts.
Specific aims. For the students, passing the exam would imply being capable of: 1) Knowing the
most relevant theories in language socialization and the relationship between socialization
processes, culture and discourse; knowing and understanding the methodological qualitative tools
to observe, analyze, design and assess the characteristics and effectiveness of a socialization
context (Descriptor 1 : Knowledge and understanding); 2) to apply the knowledge of the
epistemological frameworks relevant in a cultural and interactionist perspective to the analysis of
the main dimensions implied in socialization processes in different educational contexts; to
develop reflexive skills in applying methods and tools of situated and qualitative research (e.g.,
ethnographic observation, narrative interviews, discourse and conversation analysis) in order to
analyze, design and assess socialization practices in different educational settings and to
understand their relationship with personal and social identity, in an inclusive perspective; to
develop analytical and planning skills to design different discursive participation structures
relevant for different educational (such as, inclusive ) aims and contexts and to reinforce one
own's sociocultural competence (II Descriptor: Applying knowledge and understanding); 3) to
develop critical judgment and interpretive skills to analyze video data and transcriptions of
interactions in different activities and socialization contexts, by means of: research (individual and
group) activities that will include the collection and the analysis of research data, and the writing
of research reports and their collective discussion in the classroom; to develop reflexive skills with
regards the ethical implications of the research about the socialization in different contexts, by
means of the consideration of ethical and relational aspects implied in the observer’s access to the
field of observation (III Descriptor: Making judgments); 4) to develop skills as regards the
communication of empirical results of observation and analytical interpretation of data collected
in socialization contexts, to both expert and non expert audiences, by means of: public
presentations of data and observations in the classroom, collective classroom discussions of data
and analyses , and the writing of analytical reports regarding collected data, which will be assessed
at the end of the (IV Descriptor: Communication skills); 5) to develop skills in autonomous learning
and the detailed study of theoretical methodological and applied knowledge usable to the study
and the design of effective socialization practices in different
educational contexts (V Descriptor: Lifelong learning skills)
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