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Joint Action in Didactics and Classroom Ecology: Comparing Theories using a Case Study in Physical Education

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Abstract

This paper examines the respective contribution of two theoretical approaches to teaching and learning: the classroom ecology (CE) framework from Anglo-American research and the joint action in didactics (JAD) framework, which is part of French didactique research. This theoretical comparison is grounded in data from a case study in a Physical Education class in a French middle school located in an underprivileged area. Comparing how both frameworks account for classroom life (here, teaching and learning in Physical Education) enables us to uncover the unique contributions and limitations of each. As for commonalties, both frameworks examine the dynamics of teaching and learning based on ethnographic approaches. Although CE and JAD both focus on classroom settings and depict teacher-student interactions, they do not have the same background. We argue that the pragmatist and historico-cultural stances of the JAD framework have the potential for capturing in-depth the ways in which knowledge is enacted through teacher and student transactions, and therefore can help expand and deepen the CE epistemological approach.

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Notes

  1. Typically: seatwork, recitation, small groups, etc. (Doyle 1986, p. 399).

  2. “Collège ambition réussite”: namely the term given by the French Ministry of Education to label the “ZEP education program” between 2002 and 2009.

  3. “Teaching Games for Understanding” is an innovative approach of game teaching in PE that tries to challenge the teaching tradition of molecularisation of content. This approach puts the emphasis on tactical knowledge within modified games. It considers that skills development and tactical understanding need to advance together, as the need for the skills becomes apparent in the course of the students’ growing understanding of the game concept and developing tactical awareness (Kirk 2010, pp.51–54).

  4. Beurs is a French slang word used by young people to refer to people of Arabic/North African origin.

  5. An a priori analysis seeks to give a view on the epistemic sense of what is at stake during a didactical transaction: what is the content knowledge embodied in the primitive didactic milieu? Its exploratory function is to anticipate the students’ possible strategies. Within the JAD framework, an a priori analysis is a crucial step for depicting the co-construction of content that occurs during didactical transactions.

  6. We borrow this notion from Lidar et al. (2006) to point out the knowledge at play during the transaction. For these authors, epistemological moves concern what the teacher indicates in her/his action to make students aware of what knowledge is relevant and which ways of making meaning are valid in a specific educational context.

  7. “Social issues such as caring, emotional connections, race, gender, sexuality, and many others directly impact the ecology of physical education classrooms” (McCaughtry et al. 2008, p. 281).

  8. CE researchers describe academic tasks in terms of the cognitive operations involved (i.e. memory, routines and algorithms, expression toward content, understanding) and the degree of task complexity (see Doyle 1992 and in PE, Rink 1994), but they never address the specificities of the knowledge content at stake.

  9. Except certain studies using the CE framework to analyse Sport Education curricula in PE (Araújo et al. 2014; Hastie and Siedentop 2006).

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  1. UMR-EFTS, MA 122, University of Toulouse—Jean Jaurès, Maison de la Recherche, 5 Allées Antonio Machado, 31058, Toulouse Cedex 09, France

    Chantal Amade-Escot & Patrice Venturini

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  1. Chantal Amade-Escot
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Correspondence to Chantal Amade-Escot.

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Amade-Escot, C., Venturini, P. Joint Action in Didactics and Classroom Ecology: Comparing Theories using a Case Study in Physical Education. Interchange 46, 413–437 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-015-9263-5

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