Being, Doing, and Becoming: Fostering Possibilities for Agentive Dialogue

Abstract

In recent decades, efforts toward standardization in U.S. classrooms have limited what and how students and teachers express the many cultural stances they bring to teaching and learning, providing little to no room for students and teachers to act in agentive ways. Drawing on Bakhtinian and Dialogical Self Theory, we focus on two case studies, both part of larger qualitative studies, to explore how a student and teacher engaged in dialogues with the many cultural I-positions within and the many cultural contexts they encountered. We profile a transgender youth’s heteroglossia in motion and “otherness in the self” as he aimed to support his own and others’ selves-in-dialogue. We also describe a secondary English teacher who, through dialogue with his many I-positions that converged in his classroom, positioned himself as an advocate for un(der)documented students. Finally, we discuss issues these dialogues and contexts raised and consider what is it that schools can and should be doing to foster possibilities for agentive dialogue that supports being, doing, and becoming.