Dialogic Pedagogy

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Call for straw poll on new Dialogic Pedagogy journal

By on April 20, 2012

 

Dear colleague–

 
We write to you because you may be interested in Dialogic Pedagogy in a broader sense AND we want to check out of it is time for a new academic peer-reviewed on-line international journal on Dialogic Pedagogy in English. We want to find out if there is enough “community behind” for this journal to start. To do so we designed a very short and simple “straw poll” survey (i.e., poll without any obligation or commitment for a participant) to see if we have enough audience and workforce for the journal.
 
We view the concept of “Dialogic Pedagogy” in a broader sense as communal and discursive involving diverse, multiple, often contested and contradictory definitions and educational practices. You can find one way to conceptualize its current terrain on http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/dp-map/?page_id=18.  We view a community around the concept “Dialogic Pedagogy” are all educational practitioners, researchers, students, policymakers, parents, educational designers, and so on who are interested in this concept in some honest way (no spammers or telemarketers, please, ;)).
 
We envision that the on-line international journal will have diverse formats (e.g., dialogic peer reviews, articles with blogs, discussions of video-recorded dialogic lessons, drafts of papers in progress for feedback, round table dialogues on hot issues, wiki of key concepts, and so on) involving diverse international audience.
 
Please reply to the 3-minute straw poll survey at https://delaware.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9Gkn3ESitkqJJu4 .
 
Please forward this message to people and listservs who may be interested in Dialogic Pedagogy in a broader sense. The poll will be open until July 15th, 2012.
 
Please see the dynamic results of the survey.
 
Please let us know if you have questions.
 
Thanks,
 
Eugene Matusov, Mark Smith, and Ana Marjanovic Shane

8 Responses to 'Call for straw poll on new Dialogic Pedagogy journal'

  1. Dear folks–

    How many people should we expect to take our straw poll before we can satisfy with readership, authorship, and reviewership for our new DP journal?

    What do you think?

    Eugene

    • Ana Marjanovic-Shane says:

      Dear Eugene and all,

      I think that at least 100 people should answer the straw poll. I think that there are always more people that are "lurkers" than those that are "acters" — maybe 3:1? so if that is true, and 100 people answers this straw poll, we might expect 300 to even more (400?) people to be really interested in the journal — in the broadest sense. That also means that the majority will be just readership, and again a much smaller number will contribute and be readers, reviewers, editors, etc. But I think that if 100 people answers, we may go ahead to start thinking about details of how to organize this journal.

      How did other journals start? What do you think?

      Ana

  2. Dear folks–

    Should the journal title be very inclusive but diffused (e.g., Dialogue and Education) or focused but narrow (e.g., Dialogic Pedagogy)?

     

    Broad title can attract more people and prevent ideological wars about “the true”, authoritative, definition of “dialogue” or “dialogic pedagogy”.

     

    Focused title can attract people who are really interested in dialogue and dialogic pedagogy in whatever way they define it and exclude people who may not interested in dialogue and dialogic pedagogy but rather classroom interaction per se (as an example).

     

    What do you think?

    Eugene 

  3. Dear folks–

     

    What should our way of publishing be? Should we “selling out” our journal to a for-profit publisher or should we find an open sources publisher, or self-publishing, or ask an university library for help (which one?), or find a rich sponsor (e.g., George Soros? who else?); – other ideas?

     

    Pluses of a for-profit publisher: $$$ for editing and editors; taking care for technical processes such as creation and maintenance of the website, distribution to libraries, citation index; possible paying for translators, and so on;

     

    Minuses: possible limits on open access, possible limits on the formats, bureaucracies, selling soul to the devil ;-)…

     

    What do you think?

     

    Eugene

    • nermine says:

      I would say we should go with a publisher (aka selling out :)). I think the limited access is an issue but Eugene what bureaucratic issues do you expect Eugene? I think I would more petrified about that because of time issues but otherwise may be the pluses outweigh the minuses…what do you all think?

  4. Dear colleagues–

    Here is my brainstorming about possible journal formats and activities:

     

    a.            Diverse genre of articles for publication:

    i.                     Empirical research

    ii.                   Conceptual/theoretical research/scholarship

    iii.                  Comments raising issues and concerns about DP

    iv.                 Practitioners’ description and reflection on their educational practices related to DP

    v.                   Other?

    b.           Dialogic peer review focused on promoting dialogue rather agreement among experts;

    c.            Blogging on published articles;

    d.           Video/audio recorded pedagogical practices and their online discussions;

    e.           Special issues;

    f.             Manuscripts for feedback;

    g.            Anything else?

     

    Other ideas? Which of the formats and activities do you like or dislike on the list and why?

     

    What do you think?

     

    Eugene

  5. Dear colleagues–

    I have the following questions about our journal organizational structure and decision making?

     

    a.            What should the journal organizational structure be? Should we have manuscript editors? Format and journal activities’ editors (e.g., a book review editor)? Should we have the editor in chief? Why?

    b.           How should we select the main editor or co-editors (how many)? For what period? Should the (co)editor’s work be compensated?

    c.            How should we select the editorial board? How many people? Self-nominated?

    d.           How will decisions about the journal be made? Should we have a constitution? How should we resolve disagreements? Who should have voice? Editorial board (including co-editors)?

    e.           How will decisions about the publication acceptance/rejection/revision be made (especially in face of disagreement)? Many existing academic peer-reviewed journals consider agreement as a proxy for truth and quality of a manuscript. Should we develop more dialogic ideas? What can they be?

     

    Other issues?

     

    What do you think?

     

    Eugene

  6.  

    Dear DP colleagues–

     

    We’re writing to you because you replied to the Straw Poll on a new Dialogic Pedagogy journal. THANKS A LOT for your enthusiastic support of this endeavor! We want to share the current result of the survey.

     

    We started the survey a week ago. By now, 234 people from 34 countries replied! We think we have reached the magic number of 200 people that makes a new journal viable.

     

    Please see details of the survey and feel free to share your observations: https://delaware.qualtrics.com/CP/Report.php?RP=RP_ac3d5QQeoI6xDLu (it is dynamic web so you can follow updates).

     

    Some people raise questions about the journal in their comments that we want to address here:

     

    1)      Someone wrote, “In my opinion, should be dialogical not only the content of articles, but also the form of organization of the journal.” We think we should try to practice what we preach and try to develop dialogic organization of the journal. I (Eugene) posted questions about the journal organization – if you are interested in discussing them or bring new questions about the journal, please, go to http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/dp-map/?page_id=857

     

    2)      Several people raise very good concerns about the scope of the journal, its title, and the definition of “Dialogic Pedagogy”. We think that the concepts like “dialogue” and “dialogic pedagogy” are communal and discursive and do not belong to one definition or one person. In other words, if you are interested in “dialogic pedagogy”, you are a part of it in whatever way you define it. This may and will lead to confusion and diffusion but we will hope, it will also lead to interesting discussions. In these friendly, collegial, discussions (dialogue-agreement and dialogue-disagreement) we can create contact zones among diverse approaches to Dialogic Pedagogy. We definitely need to discuss the title of the journal.

     

    3)      Some people are concerned if the journal will be either too empirical, theoretical or practical. We think it should be diverse in formats and genres and areas. It is fine to have a personal preference of one genre vs. another but we think different people and different preferences should find their own niches and overlaps, no?

     

    4)      We view the notion of “pedagogy” rather broadly that includes guidance and instruction and other aspects of both formal and informal education.

     

    5)      There has been a concern that the journal on Dialogic Pedagogy will create the dichotomy dialogical-non dialogical. I (Eugene) agree that some dichotomies and dualisms are not helpful. However, I also think that dichotomies and dualisms are unavoidable and some of them can be very helpful. Unavoidability of dichotomies and dualisms are evident for me in the fact that when we try to eliminate dichotomies and dualisms, we immediately create a meta- dichotomy by a priori dividing approaches on dichotomous and non-dichotomous. The usefulness of dichotomies and dualisms are famously shown in quantum physics, the particle-wave dualism, and in social sciences (e.g., Bruno Latour’s dualism of the ready-made science and the in-action science). In my view, Bakhtin’s dualism of excessive monologism and ontological dialogism is very useful as well. However, I know that my views about  dichotomies and dualisms are also fallible and limited – I just do not know how. I hope our online discussions in our Journal of Dialogic Pedagogy can be very helpful. 

     

    We will keep informing you. Feel free to share any concerns with us. Thanks A LOT for your suggestions and kind words for the journal – we try to enact them!

     

    Please pass the survey your colleagues and email lists who may be interested in Dialogic Pedagogy journal.

     

    We think that our next steps should involve addressing the following steps and questions:

     

    a)      We have 101 people from 24 countries who volunteered either to serve on the Editorial Board of the journal or to serve as (Co)Editors. We need to create an email listserv for this Steering Body.

    b)      How can we make our collective, dialogic, democratic decisions?  

    c)       Ana, Mark and I (Eugene) envision the following minimum needs for the journal:

    a.       Reliable hosting of the journal website with protection against viruses and regular backups;

    b.      Web-based journal management: reviewing and decision making about submitted manuscripts;

    c.       Website design that allows diverse interactive formats for our journal (e.g., blogs, comments, on-margin comments, wikis, multimedia, and so on) and diverse sections of the journal (e.g., published articles, book reviews, commentaries, manuscript feedback, and so on).

    d.      Paid Assistant Editor who will manage day-to-day operations of the journal;

    e.      Paid Copyeditor who edit English since this is an international journal with many non-English speakers/writers (including Eugene and Ana J);

    f.        Website master?

    g.       Anything else?

    d)      Do we want an Open Access journal?

    e)      Ana, Mark, and I (Eugene) have made investigation of possible finance of the journal and so far we have come to the following possible options:

    a.       For profit publisher: Large like Taylor and Francis, Springer, Elsevier. Smaller ones include Information Age Publishing;

    b.      University-based Publishers: Oxford Press, Cambridge Press, University of Chicago Press

    c.       Creating a society “Dialogic Pedagogy” (or something like that) with annual fees that will fund the journal;

    d.      Hosting by a university library (like Outlines journal) – we need to find that type of library if we want this option;

    e.      Create regular conferences with registration fees that will fund the journal;

    f.        Supporting the online Open Access journal with Google ads (see http://www.scholarlyexchange.org/index.html);

    g.       Asking authors to provide fees for their publications;

    h.      SPARC: library support for open access, promotes non-profit publishing – but how?

    i.         University/Department financing (e.g., Democracy & Education financed by the Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR);

    j.        Institutional Grants and Subsidies;

    k.       Private or public Foundation Grants;

    l.         Government funds (we have heard that some European countries provide grants for Open Access journals – have you heard about these grants? Can you direct us to them?);

    m.    Voluntary contributions and fundraising;

    n.      Mixing some ideas above;

    o.      Any other ideas?

    f)       What should the journal title be? We have several suggestions to broaden the current title (e.g., “Dialogic Education”, “Dialogue and Education”) or to narrow it down (e.g., “Critical Dialogic Pedagogy”). Mark, Ana, and I see both pluses and minuses in broadening or narrowing or remaining the title as it is (i.e., “Dialogic Pedagogy”). Also, some of us raised an issue if “Dialogic Pedagogy” is actually broader than “Dialogic Education” because “pedagogy” may deal with ANY learning while “education” is a particular, socially valuable, learning (e.g., involving critical type of learning).

     

    What do you think?

     

    See other questions that we generated at  http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/dp-map/?page_id=857 and feel free to join the discussion.

     

    Take care and nice meeting you!

     

    Eugene, Ana, and Mark

    PS During our recent mini-Bakhtinian conference on Dialogic Pedagogy in Newark, DE, Brian Edmiston suggested to create a wiki for recommended literature on Dialogic Pedagogy. I (Eugene) created such wiki on our DiaPed website. The list is incomplete and personally biased, of course. So, please start adding the literature on Dialogic Pedagogy that you consider important. It can be yours or somebody else. Feel free to add links to literature available on the Internet. The wiki link is: http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/dp-map/?incsub_wiki=recommended-literature-on-dialogic-pedagogy You need to register on the site to add new entries. Let me know if you need any technical help. Thanks, Brain!

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