Emerging Perspectives on the Co-Construction of Power and Learning in the Learning Sciences, Mathematics Education, and Science Education

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine a significant shift in research in the learning sciences, mathematics education, and science education that increasingly attends to the co-construction of power and learning. We review articles in these fields that embody a new sense of theoretical and methodological possibilities and dilemmas, brewing at the intersections of critical social theory and the methodological approaches of interaction analysis and microgenetic analysis. We organize our review into three thematic categories: (1) the dynamic construction of identity and ideology, (2) attending to the organization of a learning environment, and (3) leveraging and repurposing tools. Reading across these thematic areas, we identify and outline a burgeoning subfield that we term critical interaction and microgenetic analysis. By bringing this collection of articles together, this chapter provides collective epistemic and empirical weight to claims of power and learning as co-constituted and co-constructed through interactional, microgenetic, and structural dynamics. In our conclusions, we suggest six analytical commitments that are important to hold when engaging in critical interaction and microgenetic analysis.