Find in Library

The teacher is a key agent in facilitating for adolescent perspectives during lessons. Feedback dialogues have an inherent capacity to capitalise on or undervalue adolescent perspectives in instruction and learning. The present study focused on lower-secondary school teachers’ regard for adolescent perspectives in feedback dialogues with students in lessons on English as a foreign language (EFL, n = 65) and mathematics (n = 113). The data material consisted of video recordings coded with the regard for adolescent perspectives dimension in the Classroom Assessment Scoring System–Secondary Manual. Teacher–student interactions in both EFL and mathematics lessons generally showed scores in the low range for regard for adolescent perspectives. The mathematics lessons had consistently lower scores for quality. Four cases represented the maximum and minimum mean scores for the dimension, regard for adolescent perspectives, in the observed lessons. These cases provided examples of episodes when teachers either succeeded or failed to make room for adolescent perspectives in teacher–student interactions. The results indicate that attention to adolescent perspectives seems to be a neglected aspect of feedback dialogues in lower-secondary school.