Discursive practices as cultural resources: Formulating identities for individual and collective in an inclusive classroom setting

For this study I explored an elementary classroom with particular focus on how discursive practices became cultural resources for learners in formulating identities as individuals and group members. Through a Vygotskian perspective on development and learning, I focused on how using developing resources became consequential for both the collective and individuals. This study occurred over 4 years in a public professional development elementary school in partnership with an urban university in the Southwestern USA. I collected video taped data daily during the first 3 weeks of school each year, then periodically throughout the academic years. Data were analyzed from an Interactional Ethnographic approach to make visible how students negotiated meaning through their discursive practices. Focusing on a learning activity, the Network for Learning Conference, I examined how the discursive practices constructed by fifth graders became cultural resources for fourth-grade conference attendees. These resources were reformulated by the attendees the following year in their new context for learning. Results show that in this inclusive environment, an inquiry-based curriculum, and responsibility-based classroom governance system were factors that led to a responsible, respectful, and constructive classroom culture.