120 Marie-Cécile Bertau and John L. Roberts
Similarly, a teacher might speak according to a textbook information,
with the “textbook voice”; in the next moment, the teacher might switch to
her own perspective, taking a more personal voice and speaking
differently, even in contradiction with the textbook voice. This is to say
that one single person can speak with different voices and that each has its
legitimate perspective. Thus, learning encompasses different voices within
and between individuals in interaction. And it is precisely the ongoing
negotiations of their perspectives in interaction that matter for learning –
constructing one’s voice in relation to other voices (those of significant
others; the voice of a teacher, of peers, of the textbook) is a core aim in
dialogic learning; it means to acquire our own voice, while being aware of
other voices and perspectives. A dominating voice linked to a textbook, a
syllabus, or to any authority becomes visible as a voice of power and can
thus be questioned and asked for its grounds. This means that learning is
taking position and becoming aware of one’s own standing in relation to
others who are less or much more powerful, the latter one having the
power to shape the people’s voice – even to silence it.
In this sense, dialogic learning acknowledges and maintains
multiplicity, “to keep side by side opposite perspectives and points of
view,” and also to allow “for some unknowledgeable components, both
concerning the concepts to be learned and the self-development” (Ligorio,
2013, p. xxxi). In fact, dialogical learning praises the unexpected voice in
others and oneself, and it invites divergent voices that might arise in the
dialogic encounter (Skidmore & Murakami, 2016). It is explicitly not the
aim of dialogic learning to have everybody aligned to one single, fixed
knowledge item in one single dominating perspective but to construct and
hold a multiplicity of different voices and perspectives and to become able
to navigate these (Ligorio, 2013). How such open, structured and
simultaneously highly flexible and improvised dialogues can look like in
classrooms is demonstrated by the empirical studies reported in Skidmore
and Murakami (2016).