Children's Conversational Argumentation Skills: Methodological Advances, Changing Interactional Practices, and Inferential Structures.
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| Title: | Children's Conversational Argumentation Skills: Methodological Advances, Changing Interactional Practices, and Inferential Structures. |
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| Authors: | Koch, Tamara (AUTHOR), Spiess, Oliver (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Research on Children & Social Interaction. Feb2026, Vol. 9 Issue 2, p189-202. 14p. |
| Subjects: | Conversation analysis, Reasoning in children, Complexity (Philosophy), Nonverbal communication, Social interaction |
| Abstract: | This article focuses on the methodological challenges and opportunities of using conversation analysis (CA) to study the development of children's conversational argumentation skills, particularly in peer interactions among preschool and elementary school children. It highlights how CA, combined with qualitative and quantitative methods, reveals how children use linguistic, prosodic, gestural, and pragmatic resources to co-construct arguments within culturally shared contexts. Key findings include developmental shifts in argumentative complexity, the role of embodied gestures such as palm-up gestures, and the use of topoi—shared reasoning patterns—to establish plausibility in arguments. The research underscores the importance of multimodal and longitudinal approaches to capture the dynamic, interactional nature of argumentation and situates children's argumentative practices within broader philosophical and educational frameworks on reasoning and discourse competence. [Extracted from the article] |
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| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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| Abstract: | This article focuses on the methodological challenges and opportunities of using conversation analysis (CA) to study the development of children's conversational argumentation skills, particularly in peer interactions among preschool and elementary school children. It highlights how CA, combined with qualitative and quantitative methods, reveals how children use linguistic, prosodic, gestural, and pragmatic resources to co-construct arguments within culturally shared contexts. Key findings include developmental shifts in argumentative complexity, the role of embodied gestures such as palm-up gestures, and the use of topoi—shared reasoning patterns—to establish plausibility in arguments. The research underscores the importance of multimodal and longitudinal approaches to capture the dynamic, interactional nature of argumentation and situates children's argumentative practices within broader philosophical and educational frameworks on reasoning and discourse competence. [Extracted from the article] |
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| ISSN: | 20575807 |
| DOI: | 10.3138/rcsi-2025-0019 |
