Re: developmental democracy
Keith R Sawyer (sawyer who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu)
Tue, 5 Mar 1996 09:56:22 -0800 (PST)
I think these skills are being learned as early as preschool,
particularly through the intensive peer interaction of the preschool
classroom. My recent study is a close focus on the conversational exchanges
that children use to coconstruct their pretend play world, and I
identified a wide range of interactional strategies which I think are
related to the social and networking skills you (Phil) mentioned.
These include, for example: (1) an ability to dialogize, to
blend voices in play speech; (2) an ability to use _metapragmatic_
levels of interaction to creatively construct play worlds and social
relations, like friendship.
Keith Sawyer
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064