Exploring Intersubjective Interactions: A Sociocultural Analysis of Pedagogical Practices in a Digantar School

The paper makes two set of arguments, one, that creation of intersubjective spaces is central to children's engagement in the classroom teaching-learning process and two and more importantly that creation of intersubjective spaces facilitates concept development in children. Using empirical data of the classroom teaching-learning processes in a Digantar school in rural Rajasthan, India, the study presents the components of intersubjective interactions that facilitate development of concepts in children. Intersubjectivity, here, is not conceptualised as a knowledge neutral, culture neutral or historicity neutral spaces but as knowledge laden spaces which provide the possibility for mutual alignment of participants' motives. It has been argued that the multiple contact points and the nature of interaction between the teacher and learners in the school provide the possibility for investigation of the main components of intersubjective spaces in the classroom context. Negotiation of the object of activity, pedagogical interventions (such as exploratory questioning, teacher presenting herself as a non-expert, evoking classroom's long-term trajectory), focus on epistemological underpinnings of the subject and teacher's and children's engagement with metaperspectives were found to be the main factors that contributed to the creation of intersubjective spaces.