Recontextualisation_ by Gunilla Jansson

Studies in Higher Education
Vol. 31, No. 6, December 2006, pp. 667–688
ISSN 0307-5079 (print)/ISSN 1470-174X (online)/06/060667–22
© 2006 Society for Research into Higher Education
DOI: 10.1080/03075070601004275

Recontextualisation processes as sensemaking
practice in student-writers’
collaborative dialogue

Gunilla Jansson*

University of Stockholm, Sweden
01236gSTCGO013utoaSruu.0niycnH1gdi067li0leioiEl-0lnet8lr5ay0sa_a 0.0a JDjlAif/a 7nan0oAen_n9d 3rcHs2rs 0(FetsRs0ipio7morcg0eran5nlhis3benn@0ee2ect7arr3)in 0r /sE.2c1o6s Lh0d4gr0d 0ut7m1idin6c00sat-k0o1tai4 7oH.2s4n7uiXg5.sh e(eorn Elidnuec)ation
The research introduced in this article is placed in the field of socially mediated learning processes
and draws from fieldwork in a highly diverse sector in higher education. It explores the potential of
peer scaffolding as a means of making sense of tutor comments. The data consist of recordings of
conversations in two collaborative writing groups on two laboratory reports. The participants were
students with a second-language background enrolled in a course which was part of a one-year
Master’s programme in computer science at a Swedish university. The analysis is based on transcriptions
of episodes in the recordings, where the students are engaged in conversations about
different aspects that can be related to the unfolding text. All instances in these episodes where the
students are making use of teachers’ comments on explicitness with respect to logical reasoning are
coded. A qualitative analysis of the interaction reveals how aspects from teacher voices are extracted
from the institutional frame, paraphrased and put into the students’ colloquial talk. The findings
indicate that peer collaboration plays an important role in enabling students to use the metaknowledge
available in the educational setting as a tool for their learning of academic literacies.
Pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of the potential of peer scaffolding as a means to
support and develop teachers’ discourse around writing.

Introduction
In the last two decades, higher education in Sweden, as in many other countries, has
undergone significant change. Since the 1980s, a main objective of Swedish national
education policy has been to reduce participation disparities among social and
cultural groups (Strand, 2000). Today’s student population has grown in both size
and diversity. Swedish concerns about the non-participation of specific social and
cultural groups are echoed in the current national debate about widening access to
higher education.
*Department of Scandinavian Languages, University of Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: gunilla.jansson@nordiska.su.se
Downloaded By: [Fielding Graduate University] At: 17:27 21 May 2010
668 G.