Processes of negotiation in socio-scientific argumentation about vegetarianism in teacher education

Abstract

This chapter discusses argumentative interactions about a socio-scientific issue with a focus on the processes of negotiation involved in building a shared argument in a decision-making context. Argumentative interactions can be seen as processes involving negotiations (Baker in The role of communication in learning to model. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 303-324, 2002, Argumentation and education: theoretical foundations and practices. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 127-144, 2009). This study examines how preservice teachers (N = 85; 20 small groups) negotiate a range of contents (negotia), such as task goals, strategies for carrying on the task, meanings, choices, and justifications for them. The context is a debate about diets, vegetarian versus omnivorous, a question involving dimensions such as nutritional, ecological (both of them scientific), ethical, socioeconomic, or cultural. The research objective is to examine the processes of negotiation about the choice or option to be agreed by the group (vegetarian, vegan, omnivorous), and about the evidence and justification to be employed to support the option, expressed in these research questions: (1) Which dimensions have greater weight in the negotiation processes and in the final decision? (2) Which patterns, in terms of strategies and negotiation levels, reveal the negotiation paths in four small groups? A detailed analysis of the negotiation in one group illustrates how it proceeds from opposed alternatives and initial rejections, through a series of offers and acceptances, involving actors in an appropriation of dialogical contributions from others, which finally made possible reaching a consensus through mutual concessions. The influence of the features of the task and its multidisciplinary dimensions, in particular cultural values, is discussed.