Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices 5:1 2011

Exploring the concept of students as active participants in

teacher-child dialogue in a New Zealand context
Lia de Vocht
University of Canterbury, New Zealand

In the article I explore conceptualisations of teacher-child dialogue from a poststructuralist

perspective in a New Zealand (NZ) context. NZ curriculum frameworks for both school and
early childhood construct expectations that students are actively participating in their
learning. I draw on the assumption that classroom dialogue can be an important tool for
teachers to support students to be active participants in their learning process, but
depending on how active participation is interpreted, this may lead to a superficial and
tokenistic engagement with young people. I argue that a critical analysis is necessary to look
deeper into issues of engagement and teacher-child relationships. My understanding of
children’s engagement draws on Foucault’s conception of dialogue as a reciprocal interplay
between ourselves and the world (Falzon, 1998) and a Bakhtinian perspective of dialogue as
going far beyond giving and receiving information (Hirschkop, 1999). This article is also
informed by Biesta’s view of education as a radically open question (Biesta, 2006). I start
with a brief review of NZ curriculum frameworks and empirical research followed by a critical
analysis of these that aims to open up new possibilities for teacher-child dialogue.

A very brief review of national curriculum frameworks in relation to active participation and
teacher-child dialogue in New Zealand is presented. This is followed by a short discussion of
related empirical research in order to contextualize and justify a critical analysis on teacher-
child dialogue. In the second part of this paper I consider philosophical understandings
which draw on poststructural theories, in order to open up possibilities for new forms of
dialogue in classroom contexts. Language used in NZ curriculum documentation and in
dominant international and NZ educational discourses is analysed and insights from
theorists such as Foucault, Bakhtin and Biesta are offered to open new interpretations of
teacher-child dialogue. I finish with a speculative and tentative framework of different
perspectives on classroom dialogue in an attempt to prompt further discussion.

New Zealand Curriculum Frameworks

Curriculum frameworks are generally presented as reflections of current thinking around the
purpose of education. Historically formal education has been conceptualized around the idea
of the cultivation of the individual through discipline, socialisation and moral training. Biesta
(2006) argues that this view of education stems from the Greek ideal of an educated person
who has acquired clearly defined knowledge and who has been trained to think in a certain
way for a particular profession (Biesta, 2006; Gilbert, 2005). At the end of the 18 th century,
after Kant’s call for rational autonomy, education was seen as the means to achieve
universal reason through the cultivation of ‘free thinking’ individuals. In modern education the
ability to think became known as the process of knowledge acquisition, coupled with
understanding which developed in the mind (Vanderstraeten & Biesta, 2006). During the 20th
century critical theories, and in particular post-structuralist and postmodern thinking, initiated
a process that, according to Gilbert (2005) is prompting a shift in educational philosophy

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towards socio-cultural theories of multiple pathways and contextualized learning where

students are active participants in the production of knowledge (Gilbert, 2005).

Both the New Zealand primary and secondary school curriculum (New Zealand Curriculum -
NZC) (Ministry of Education, 2007)) and the early childhood curriculum (Te Whāriki; He
Whāriki Matauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa - TWC) (MoE, 1996) can be seen as
attempts to move education beyond passive transmission of learning to education that
enables a more active role for the students. The documents have clearly been influenced by
emerging socio-cultural theories of empowering students to be active participants in their
learning, a view of learning as holistic and the importance of both the relationships
established in the learning process and the context in which students learn. The NZ curricula
endorse the active participation of students in dialogue. Several suggested practices in the
early childhood curriculum relate directly to dialogue. For example, TWC offers the following
suggestion to support the development of language skills: “adults provide opportunities for
young children to have sustained conversations, to ask questions and to take the initiative in
conversations” (MoE, 1996, p. 77). The NZC also supports dialogue in its vision for young
people to be “critical and creative thinkers, active seekers, users and creators of knowledge
and informed decision makers” (MoE, 2007 p. 8). Students are supported to develop key
competencies such as thinking, relating to others, participating and contributing: “students
are expected to actively seek, use and create knowledge, to reflect on their own learning,
draw on personal experiences and intuitions, ask questions and challenge the basis of
assumptions and perceptions” (MoE, 2007. p. 12). As in the early childhood curriculum,
adults are called upon to challenge young people and to support them in contexts that are
increasingly wide ranging and complex. The NZC also spells out the need for adults to
encourage young people to ask questions and to reflect critically.

However, empirical studies related to teacher-child talk internationally indicate that

classroom discussion generally tends to be one-sided and teacher directed (Alexander,
2004; Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003; Billings & Fitzgerald, 2002; Dombey,
2003; Nuthall, 2007; Powell, Burchinal, File, & Kontos, 2008). The usual patterns of
classroom talk generally consist of the teacher asking questions, students giving the
answers they believe the teacher expects to receive, and the teacher evaluating good or bad
responses according to whether or not they match her expectations. This can be illustrated
in the well-known IRE approach (Initiation-Response-Evaluate). The discussion is often
controlled by the teacher and questions asked are mostly those the teacher already knows
the answer to (Alexander, 2004; Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003; Billings &
Fitzgerald, 2002; Dombey, 2003; Nuthall, 2007; Powell, Burchinal, File, & Kontos, 2008).
Several authors observed how current classroom practice still has limited opportunities for
students to actively participate in dialogue by drawing on their own experiences or to build
on these experiences (Alexander, 2004; Bannink & van Dam, 2006; Dickenson & Darrow,
2008; Dombey, 2003; Nuthall, 2007). Some studies reported that teachers have a deficit
view of diverse students which severely affects the quality of relationships they can establish
with them and the resultant opportunities for dialogue (Billings & Fitzgerald, 2002; Bishop,
Berryman, Tiakiwai, & Richardson, 2003).

Empirical studies that used more technical approaches to dialogue found that a range of
strategies could be used to foster dialogue depending on the context, and that it was more

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important for teachers to self reflect and choose strategies which were appropriate for their
context (Applebee et al., 2003; Bannink & van Dam, 2006; Brown & Hirst, 2007). Several
studies conclude that classroom conversations need to be transformed into empowering
dialogues (Alexander, 2004; Bannink & Van Dam, 2006; Dickenson & Darrow, 2008;
Dombey, 2003).

NZ research on current practice in relation to teacher-child dialogue shows that educational

practice in New Zealand is still based on an idea of education as socialization into a certain
discipline and existing dominant (Western) discourse (Bishop et al., 2003; Gilbert, 2005). NZ
researcher Graham Nuthall, in particular, spent a lifetime doing research on what happens in
NZ classrooms; his work was unique in giving access to students’ voices in classroom
settings and his scholarly contribution in this area is internationally recognised. Nuthall
(2007) suggested that there is a potential problem with ideas and models about how to teach
as often there is no explanation of underlying learning principles. He stated that he had
become deeply suspicious of research on different methods of teaching and asserted that:
“[r]esult of studies of best practice tends to be what experts currently deem best – [w]hatever
is fashionable at the time determines what researchers look for and what they see” (p. 29).

Nuthall also noticed how conversation tends to be started by the teacher, with the usual
sequence of ‘the teacher asks, the student responds and the teacher makes a comment’. He
believed that at the beginning of the 21st century this pattern of teacher-student exchange
has remained the same since he started his observations in 1959. He argued that there is no
guarantee that classroom activities engage students in the way the teacher intends they will
learn. He found that many of the quality assurance systems used to evaluate teachers on
effective teaching methods are based on fashion trends and on assumptions that a particular
teaching strategy can predict and guarantee learning. He concluded that students build their
understanding on previous experiences and that peer culture is a major factor in learning.
Furthermore, he found that sitting in lectures teaches student teachers that knowledge is
something that is given whether they like it or not and that this creates a passive attitude in
student teachers that may be reproduced in classrooms (this is confirmed in the insights of
student teachers in NZ in one of the articles of this issue).

Educational theorists such as Alexander (2004) and Claxton (2008) state that children’s
ability to think critically can be related directly to the structure and content of their talk. In
dialogue children can build relationships and further develop communication skills and social
skills. Research by Alexander (2004) shows that when teachers ask open ended questions
in order to elicit more meaningful answers from students, these questions often rate mostly
as pseudo-enquiry; they are often unfocused, unchallenging , undemanding and not
cumulative. In addition, children usually receive habitual praise rather than meaningful
feedback. Furthermore, teachers still mostly decide the structure of the class, who may
speak and when; they determine the content and often guide students towards
predetermined outcomes (Alexander, 2004; Claxton, 2008; Gilbert, 2005; Woods, 2006).
Alexander (2004) argues that effective dialogue can bring out everyone’s perspectives; what
is important for each person. He asserts that it is collaborative; by listening to each other and
by making contributions people can build new understandings. Lastly he states that dialogue
may empower young people to take charge of their own learning, through respectful
relationships and the development of critical thinking skills.

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Similarly, Noddings (2006) asserts that there are widespread misgivings about dialogue in
schools. She states: “[i]t is not just talking to each other; dialogue requires listening and a
genuine respect for the partner in dialogue, [it] asks for a mutual commitment to inform, learn
and make decisions” (p. 80). Alexander (2004) defines the following essential features for
effective dialogic classrooms: dialogue is collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and
purposeful. Alexander (2004) argues that classroom dialogue is undervalued by both
teachers and parents. He found that in Britain considerably lower status is ascribed to talk
than to writing. He believes that an educational culture has evolved in which writing is seen
as the only ‘real’ school work and as the most reliable medium for measuring pupils’
learning.

Alternative Perspectives on Teacher-Child Dialogue

I draw on the studies mentioned above to assert that classroom dialogue can be seen as an
important tool to support students as active participants in their learning and in teacher-child
dialogue. However, studies on pedagogical improvements based on technical approaches to
dialogue, such as those applying particular strategies to encourage dialogue, show that a
focus on strategies does not necessarily achieve positive outcomes for all students and in all
situations. Therefore I suggest that a theoretical or philosophical approach may be
necessary to change the way teachers think about dialogue before strategies can be found
to encourage more dialogue in classrooms. In the remainder of this article I offer some
theoretical explorations in order to foster dialogue around classroom dialogue. I write in
order “to change myself and not to think the same thing as before” (Foucault, 1984, p. 240). I
acknowledge that this discussion is what I am thinking now, today and that in a dialogical
process my thinking will be inalterably changed (Shields, 2007).

While technical/instrumental research approaches may give valuable insights into existing
teacher-student interactions and how specific strategies work in particular contexts, they
tend to simplify education to a one-size-fits-all education system and may reduce the teacher
from a professional to a technician (Biesta, 2006; Nuthall, 2007; Todd, 2009). Both Todd
(2009) and Nuthall (2007) warn against bombarding teachers with all kinds of strategies to
be implemented in order to improve their practice. Alexander (2004) believes that the usual
distinction of traditional versus progressive approaches in educational research is
inadequate to deal with relationships between teaching, culture, knowledge and learning.
Taylor and Robinson (2009) also note how research on student voice has generally focused
on practical intervention, with an urgent focus on practice leading to immediate
implementation. They prefer to use theory as a thinking tool for new possibilities, or in other
words theory as a method, as opposed to theory as statements that can be tested by
empirical investigation. Butler, Lacau and Zizek (as cited in Taylor & Robinson, 2009)
suggest that theory can be used to: “allow time to question a form or activity or a conceptual
domain, not to banish or censure it… (but) to suspend its ordinary play in order to ask after
its constitution” (p. 163). In the next section I explore how poststructuralist theories can be a
possible thinking tool that may make space for more time to question.

Gert Biesta (2006), an educational philosopher who engages with the works of Dewey,
Derrida and Arendt amongst others, explains how education is influenced by current trends.
Biesta observes how, for example, the language of education has been replaced by the

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language of learning. He argues that in the discursive practice of who decides what should
be learned, what can be said and what can be known, choice of one word over another
matters (Biesta, 2006). In the NZC (MoE, 2007) the word ‘learning’ is used overwhelmingly
throughout the document, whereas the term education is rarely mentioned. Biesta (2006)
argues that the replacement of the word education with learning has made some things
possible to express while others have become more difficult. He identifies four different
trends which have led to the new language of learning in many western societies: emerging
socio-cultural theories, postmodern thinking, an explosion of adult learning, and a changed
government-citizen relationship from a political to an economical framework. Biesta identifies
three implications for this trend. One, education becomes an economic transaction where
the learner is seen as a consumer with particular needs and the educator becomes the
provider. Two, education is seen as a commodity to be delivered flexibly to the learner’s
needs, with value for money and perhaps the view that the customer is always right (student-
initiated learning). Three, educational institutes become more accountable for the funding
they receive.

Perhaps this view of education has become so normalised (Foucault, 1980), that at first sight
all of the above begins to be perceived as common sense. However, Biesta (2006) warns
against comparing education with economy. Learners cannot be seen as economic
customers, who always know what they want. This view denies the conceptualisation of
education as a means to find out who you are and what you want to do. In the language of
learning, teachers are no longer the professionals who go beyond providing a service to
defining what this service entails. In this sense, teacher inquiry into evidence-based
strategies to help students learn, which is widely encouraged in the NZC (MoE, 2007), limits
the outcome of the inquiry to a technocratic solution. Biesta (2007) suggests that teachers
should use evidence–informed research which tells them what worked and what has been
possible for professional teachers to reflect on what that might mean in their own context, as
opposed to using research as a cookbook to achieve pre-determined outcomes. Meeting
pre-defined learners’ needs suggests a framework with technical questions about process
and effectiveness, leaving out important questions about purpose and content. Arendt
questions if it is possible for a human being to be the object of its own knowledge; she states
it would be like jumping over one’s own shadow (Arendt, 1958). When teachers only provide
what is asked for, education which supports learners to go beyond themselves and thus
transform the world is made impossible and education is thus limited to a socialisation into
an existing society. Despite its statements about students as active participants, the NZC
(MoE, 2007), interpreted through an economic view of education, limits learning to a
technical process and prevents learners from going beyond existing knowledge. From this
perspective, the NZC (MoE, 2007) contradicts its own stated aims of enabling students to
actively participate in their learning processes.

This technocratic pressure to improve performance informed by pre-determined (generally

economically defined) outcomes affects education worldwide (Nuthall, 2007). Clear
examples of this are league tables and international student monitoring systems. In 2010 the
NZ government imposed standardised testing in numeracy and literacy in primary schools
for the first time (despite unprecedented opposition from teachers). Technological education
in its widest sense is seen as a means to bring about certain ends. Parents are encouraged
to see themselves as consumers, expecting schools to deliver educational outcomes.

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Standardisation and the view of students as consumers assumes that education is an

instrument that can be put to work to bring about certain ends, which is fine when students
meet set outcomes. However, there are many students who do not meet these outcomes.
When students fail, evidence-based research is called for to find the right technical
strategies to overcome these difficulties (Todd, 2009). In this wider context of
instrumentalism, it is not surprising that technicist approaches to dialogue are still the norm.

Post-structuralism offers several tools to challenge this technicism and accompanying

standardising, normalising and silencing approaches in formal schooling. Foucault (1980)
encourages us to address questions such as whose knowledge is represented and whose
interests are served in classroom practice. He argues that each discipline has its own set of
rules or norms, which produces relations of domination, such as teachers asking all
questions in traditional classroom talk. Power is also exercised over children (and teachers)
by excluding alternative ways of understanding: Foucault (1977) argues that schooling
disciplines both the student and the teacher; that schooling is about controls, ranking and
normalisation. Foucault (1980) rejects a normalising truth which allows only one right way of
knowing, and proposes a complexity and diversity of ways of knowing for freeing our thinking
about educational practices. He suggests that it is not so much about who has power, but
how power is exercised. Foucault believes that we are active agents who are forming
ourselves, but who are also constituted and constructed by normalising discourses. He does
not see power as a thing that is held and used by an individual or a group, but as a complex
flow and set of relations between different groups of society which change with
circumstances and time. Foucault’s view of dialogue is that no social order can ever be
absolute or eternal and that there will always be resistance, renewed dialogue and the
transformation of social form (Falzon, 1998, p. 8). In an interview with Rabinow, Foucault
defined dialogue as follows:

Questions and answers depend on a game--a game that is at once pleasant and
difficult--in which each of the two partners takes pains to use only the rights given
him by the other and by the accepted form of the dialogue (Rabinow, 1984, p. 381).

Foucault’s definition of dialogue is compatible with Bakhtin’s concepts of heteroglossia and

speech genres. Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher whose work concentrated on dialogue and
language, believed that all meaning is in language (Bakhtin, 1981). Meaning making is the
effect of the interaction between speaker and listener. It is not created in the individual but in
the interplay between those who speak: “every word is directed toward an answer and
cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word it anticipates” (Bakhtin, 1981,
p. 280).

Bakhtin preferred the term dialogism over dialogue to indicate a philosophical view of
dialogue as meaningful conversations (Hirschkop, 1999). Furthermore, dialogism is a social
act rather than a monological expression of an individual. Hirschkop (1999) argues that for
Bakhtin dialogue is not simply about words, it is a way of life and the essence of being; the
meaning of dialogue is not necessarily about two people; he believes the inter-subjective
meaning is found in the space between expression and understanding. Bakhtin (1981) is
known for concepts such as heteroglossia, which can be described as the presence of two
or more voices or discourses, or genres as Bakhtin calls them, generally expressing

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alternative or conflicting perspectives. Speech genres could be translated as identities, for

example a peasant who speaks to his family in one voice, sings in the church choir in
another, and talks to other peasants in the field in a third. Speech genres impose an order
and form on everyday speech in ways we are largely unaware of (Bakhtin, 1986). Although
Bakhtin’s model of dialogue has been interpreted as unproblematic and leaving power
relations intact (Taylor & Robinson, 2009), it can be argued that Bakhtin takes into account
structures of power and hierarchy as determining dialogic reaction between social spaces.
The addressee’s social position, rank and importance are reflected in a special way in
utterances of everyday and business speech communication. Bakhtin uses the term
‘chronotope’ to express inseparability and intersection of time and space: we cannot
understand the present without knowing the history, yet history does not determine the
present, everything is seen as open to change (Shields, 2007). Again this can be seen as a
link to Foucault’s view of the importance of history and how discourses are open to change.
Shields (2007) states that:

Living dialogically means being open to new concepts, ideas. When one moves
towards another idea, one does not automatically embrace it, but one ‘returns’ to
one’s own place, inalterably changed (p. 9).

Derrida’s deconstruction theory on the binary opposition between understanding and

misunderstanding provides yet another perspective which can be applied to teacher-child
dialogue. Derrida is often accused of being negative or nihilistic, however his theories should
be seen as an affirmation, not of what already exists, but an affirmation of the other or the
unforeseeable: it is thinking afresh (Biesta, 2009). Biesta explains how conceptions of
understanding and misunderstanding are usually represented as a binary opposition,
whereby understanding is considered normal and misunderstanding is seen as a distortion;
he notes how Derrida challenges this binary opposition, arguing that misunderstanding must
be seen as much a part of language as understanding is (Biesta, 2009). Every speech act
needs to be interpreted by others in order for it to be meaningful; dissemination of speech
acts is therefore completely unpredictable; or in Bakhtin’s words: each returns to his or her
own place inalterably changed (Shields, 2007). Communication is not found in pure
understanding; neither is it found in pure misunderstanding, but in the undecided possibility
between the two (Biesta, 2009).

Biesta (2001) and Todd (2009) suggest that educators should see the difficulty of education
as normal and to use this as a starting point. Biesta (2001) emphasises that the most urgent
question of society today is how to find ways of living in a diverse and plural world and that
we need to do this by creating space for the difficulty of human interaction. While the
difficulty of teaching in plural classrooms is often the object of research studies, plurality and
how to deal with this is not often discussed as an educational subject. Biesta (2001) adapts
two main strategies which have been used in political science to find a possible answer to
plurality in educational contexts. One is about building consensus, but critics of this strategy
ask: how can consensus ever be fully inclusive; consensus means that someone always has
to give in and that there will always be remainders of resistance. A second view is that
plurality cannot be overcome by politics and therefore this should not be attempted. The first
strategy is used by those who see plurality as a difficulty, a weakness, something that should
be solved or get fixed. The second strategy is more liberal; expecting a community to co-

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exist while avoiding uncomfortable issues (Biesta, 2001). Biesta (2006) and Todd (2009)
suggest that educators should accept the difficulty of plurality and uncertainty and that we
should treat education and what it means to be human as a radically open question. A
question which, Biesta argues: “can only be answered by engaging in education rather than
a question that is answered before education begins” (Biesta, 2006, p. ix.). Biesta’s notion of
education as a radically open question can be considered as an important concept when
theorising teacher-child dialogue.

Education as a radically open question also leaves room for education which goes beyond
pre-determined enculturation. Many educationalists (see for example Gilbert, 2005; Osberg
and Biesta, 2008) note that, for the most part, education is still concerned with an
enculturation or training into an existing world. While learning happens everywhere, schools
are directing a particular kind of learning, purposely shaping those being educated, as
Foucault would argue, in particular kinds of subjects (Falzon, 1998). The curriculum shapes
the desired type of learning with particular outcomes in mind and when these outcomes are
not met students (and educators) are deemed to have failed. It can be argued that by
creating curricula with set outcomes the ‘subjectivity’ of learners is directed only in
‘legitimate’ ways, in pre-determined outcomes, and that education remains a planned
enculturation or training. This type of education puts limits on emerging learning. Osberg and
Biesta (2008) argue that emergent learning with true participation can only happen if we
allow a double concept of emergence, namely emergence of the meaning as well as the
learner’s emergence. Teachers can support this by creating unsettling spaces, which keep
the way open for students to become someone. Dunne (2008) asks to give children voice
and agency in what he calls genuine speech:

Words count as genuine speech as they reveal….. what we are trying to mean:
speech only partly as declaration and so also as probe, experimental, play--our
meaning always slightly beyond us as we are stretched out in language toward it. It is
the kind of speech that young children latch on to early on--when they are not
answering ritual questions, repeating mind numbing formulae (Dunne, 2008, p. 268).

Osberg and Biesta (2008) warn that a space of emergence is not an easy place to be. It can
bring unforeseen changes, placing oneself at risk and forced to take a position. Education as
a radically open question thus goes beyond a thin, ideal or moral conception of dialogue as
reciprocal interaction, allowing for what Falzon calls a minimal conception of dialogue which
makes it possible to “relocate the ethical attitude of openness and to understand in a new
way” ( Falzon, 1998, p. 8).

Conclusion

In order to remain open to a dialogue into possibilities of students as active participants in

classroom dialogue, a tentative table (see Table 1) shows differences between a technical
approach and one based on my interpretations of poststructuralist theory. A poststructuralist
approach requires an openness to possibilities, but also a constant critique of the
implications of such possibilities. Tables can be useful in that they provide entry points for
readers, but it needs to be noted that they are imperfect and problematic too; they are
limited and exclude contextualisation. A table is also imperfect from a poststructuralist
perspective as it may imply a hierarchical binary opposition and could be seen in a similar

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way as Derrida’s deconstruction of understanding/ misunderstanding. Thus, this table is

speculative and tentative; it is intended as an undecided possibility of two approaches,
dependent on the context one is embedded in.

Table 1: A tentative ideas on the differences between technical and philosophical

approaches of classroom dialogue
Perspectives Technical/instrumental Philosophical
Methodologies Interventions, strategies, Method-in-theory;
practical implementation of Reflecting, deconstructing,
ideas exploring possibilities
Purpose of education Behaviourist Critical, post-structuralist
Controversy Avoids uncomfortable Can be uncomfortable
issues
Political Consensus Diversity and plurality
Power Not addressed, status quo Questions power,
transformational
Outcome Scientific, outcomes are Open-ended
known
View of education With particular outcomes, As a process, living in a
often economic, linked to diverse plural world, social
labour market justice
How to sort this Deal with the issues, solve From one question to more
the problem complex questions;
ongoing

Furthermore it needs to be noted that the perspectives offered in this paper on teacher-child
dialogue are constructed by adults for a dialogue with children; they carry adult agendas and
priorities. What children become is to a large extent what adults enable or allow them to
become (Dunne, 2008).

Children will be supported to be active participants in a pedagogy that engages

children and that does not always displace their already robustly established informal
theories (Dunne, 2008, p. 271).

In an increasingly diverse and plural world, educational practice is no longer only about
knowledge transmission and understanding a finished world, but of participation in an
unfinished world (Osberg & Biesta, 2008). The NZC (MoE, 2007) makes many references to
students participating, sustainability and future focused education in a diverse and plural
world. This paper suggests a curriculum which is emerging from dialogues with children and
the educative situation itself, rather than one used for stabilising and replicating the world.
Vanderstraeten and Biesta (2006) suggest that teachers need to be prepared to use the
potentialities of situations that might arise in classrooms. I argue that educators also need to
use the potentialities offered by new curricular policies, such as the NZ curricula. However,
for these potentialities to be realised, further dialogue on a more open ended participatory,
pluralistic, socially just and future-focused education is necessary.

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