Pragmatic investigations -Studies of meaning making in educational discourses : Contribution to the NERA congress, March 6-9 in Copenhagen, Denmark

• The overall aim of this paper is to present and discuss a pragmatic approach for studies of meaning making in different educational practices. The approach – built on a framework developed within the SMEDgroup (Studies of Meaning making in Educational Discourses) at the universities of Uppsala and Örebro – is illustrated in a number of empirical studies. The main point of departure in the studies is taken in pragmatic curriculum theory and sociocultural perspectives on learning, and is inspired mainly by John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault. A special focus is directed to communication practices and content selection within Physical education, Environmental education and Science education. A common ambition is to offer a language that enables studies and discussions on questions concerning how meanings are made in people’s actions. Another ambition is to make these investigations beyond assumptions of dualisms, essentialism, causality and determinism. In this perspective learning and socialisation is viewed in communicative perspective. Therefore, many of the studies are built on video recorded classroom conversations, but also on analysis of various kinds of written texts. We argue in the paper that this approach makes it possible to study meaning making – learning and socialisation – in different kinds of educational practices.

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