POLO Claire

I work at the crossroads of Educational Sciences and Linguistics. I study the discourse of actors engaged in activities aiming at cognitive advancement, mostly through dialogue analysis, but I also work on some forms of writings. More specifically, I am interested in argumentative practices, both as tools to acquire new knowledge (arguing to learn approach), and as target social skills (learning to argue approach). Part of my work also focuses on designing and studying appropriate environments to foster collaborative learning and group reasoning. I apprehend learning and reasoning as tridimensional processes involving cognitive, social and emotional dynamics. As a result, I pay attention to any logico-discursive construct that is used to reason, in authentic situations (different forms of knowledge, norms and values). 

 

Main research
interests

I use a large set of methods, and adapt my methodology to my research questions. Still, three main methodological principles guide my work:
1. empirical approach: my research is based on authentic data, extensive field work and video analysis;
2. bottom-up approach: I try to let analytical categories emerge from data analysis, and further on work on integrating deep case studies into theoretical hypotheses and propositions;
3. taking into account the central role of language in cognition: I do not try to separate thinking from the linguistic expression of thinking, which I study as a multimodal action (speech, gesture, use of objects, writing, use of pictures, graphs, etc). 

My work meets several international research communities:

> in education research:
- design-based research and educational design - didactics of socially acute questions and socio-scientific issues  - dialogic teaching - Communities of Philosophical Inquiry (CRP) - collaborative learning (within the learning sciences)
> in linguistics:
- argumentation studies - discourse analysis - interactional linguistics and conversation analysis - multimodal communication and gesture studies - linguistics applied to professional practices

Publications
& communications

• Publications

  Books ; Papers in scientific journals ; Book chapters ; International conference proceedings ; PhD
• Communications