Abstract:
The complex nature of primary to secondary school transition has interested educators for many years. While it is acknowledged that experiences of schooling during this time are often challenging for students, very little is known about the day-to-day actions of accomplishing transition. There exists an absence of empirical work investigating the everyday practices of students and teachers in establishing how transition is socially produced in real time. This research examines transition-in-action by employing ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to explore transition as interactionally accomplished in classroom lessons. Through the detailed analysis of classroom talk-in-interaction during lessons at the end of Year 6 and the beginning of the following Year 7, an account of the unfolding nature of transition is provided. In this way, the research contributes understandings of how transition is socially organised and accomplished in the study of the talk practices of its participants, and how such practices enable and constrain opportunities for students to access important interactional resources as they transition to secondary school.
Three key findings emerging from the research (and of interest to the Middle Years of Schooling SIG) include:
* Finding 1: Across both Year 6 and Year 7 settings, teachers use a class of shared practices to create social order by cohorting students into a single unit, providing the go-ahead for the next activity in the lesson. Holding in place these practices is the strength of the teacher-student category pair which is maintained despite the significant changes associated with transition.
* Finding 2: The interactional arrangements of the Year 6 classroom provide students with enhanced opportunities to clarify potential problematic matters during lessons. As a result, Year 6 students display an informed approach to navigating independent work.
* Finding 3: The two-party turn-taking system dominated by the teacher in the Year 7 classroom provides reduced occasions for students to interactionally achieve a shared understanding of what to do next. This results in a lack of direction about how to approach subsequent tasks.
The paper will explore transcripts of Year 6 and Year 7 lessons to reveal how primary to secondary transition is socially accomplished through the local, situated and contingent organisation of talk practices between students and their teachers. In particular, it will analyse examples of ‘student chatter’ (what students say to each other when the teacher is talking and can't hear them) to investigate students’ attempts of making meaning on covert ‘side floor’ conversations.
Three key findings emerging from the research (and of interest to the Middle Years of Schooling SIG) include:
* Finding 1: Across both Year 6 and Year 7 settings, teachers use a class of shared practices to create social order by cohorting students into a single unit, providing the go-ahead for the next activity in the lesson. Holding in place these practices is the strength of the teacher-student category pair which is maintained despite the significant changes associated with transition.
* Finding 2: The interactional arrangements of the Year 6 classroom provide students with enhanced opportunities to clarify potential problematic matters during lessons. As a result, Year 6 students display an informed approach to navigating independent work.
* Finding 3: The two-party turn-taking system dominated by the teacher in the Year 7 classroom provides reduced occasions for students to interactionally achieve a shared understanding of what to do next. This results in a lack of direction about how to approach subsequent tasks.
The paper will explore transcripts of Year 6 and Year 7 lessons to reveal how primary to secondary transition is socially accomplished through the local, situated and contingent organisation of talk practices between students and their teachers. In particular, it will analyse examples of ‘student chatter’ (what students say to each other when the teacher is talking and can't hear them) to investigate students’ attempts of making meaning on covert ‘side floor’ conversations.