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one thing” (Burbules, 1993, p. 110), a careful selection of the form of dialogue should be considered depending on the goal of the dialogical engagement within the research project.
Contrary to the general view of student involvement within a Learners as data
source perspective in both institutionally focussed discourses and learner-oriented
discourses (Charteris & Smardon, 2018), which sees such involvement as passive,
we argue that providing data can in fact be construed as active and constructive
engagement. In providing data without engaging in a dialogue students can make 3 their own decisions and take action demonstrating command of resources (learner
agency); individual student voices can be heard and a connection can be made
between individual learning processes and experiences (personalised learning);
and a consultative participation of students can be valued (radical collegiality).
This does mean that whether student involvement in the Learners as data source
perspective is construed as active depends to a large extent on how student
voice is valued by the researcher and/or teacher; this in turn has an effect on the interpretation of the data.
Furthermore, with regard to the Learners as initiators perspective, students do not make a school alone. Schooling is a cooperation, not only between students, teachers and school leaders, but also educational specialists, researchers, policy makers, and even materials designers. Privileging student-initiated research at the expense of, for example, teacher-initiated research seems somewhat arbitrary, and, moreover, incomplete and limited. We furthermore claim that the Learners as initiators perspective can arguably only be attained when the research topic is concrete, and students are in some way familiar with the topic. When topics concern more abstract notions such as pedagogical or methodological issues, we can hardly expect students to initiate innovative research projects, let alone be dependent on this initiation. Consequently, we would contend that the additional value of including student voice in educational research is not the fact that students initiated the research but the fact that their voice is regarded as an essential component. In other words, the three perspectives we have discussed – Learners as data source, Learners in dialogue, and Learners as initiators – each bring unique insights and should therefore be regarded as compatible rather than hierarchical.
3.1.3 Foreign language-literature teaching research
Foreign language-literature teaching, a term coined by Paesani (2011), is in the process of a curricular redesign worldwide. Ever since the Modern Language
Connecting students and researchers
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