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Trata-se de uma pesquisa de doutorado que tem por objeto o registro de práticas e a documentação como elemento da cultura pedagógica no contexto da Educação Infantil e visa a responder à seguinte questão: De que maneira o registro de práticas e a documentação vêm sendo construídos no cotidiano do trabalho pedagógico para a Educação Infantil, e qual a relação entre documentação pedagógica e a construção de uma pedagogia para a infância no contexto de um projeto político-pedagógico em ação? Tem como objetivo geral analisar as possibilidades relacionadas à inserção de práticas de registro e documentação na Educação Infantil enquanto elemento constitutivo do projeto político-pedagógico em ação, e como objetivos específicos a) identificar e analisar experiências de registro e documentação como parte da cultura organizacional de instituições de Educação Infantil; b) compreender as possibilidades decorrentes do registro como cultura organizacional e como cultura pedagógica para a Educação Infantil; c) refletir sobre o processo de construção de uma \"cultura do registro\" no contexto da Educação Infantil; d) indicar elementos a serem considerados por políticas públicas para a Educação Infantil. Como procedimento metodológico, foi realizado estudo de caso coletivo (STAKE, 1994, 1999), ou estudo de casos múltiplos (YIN, 2005), no qual foram investigadas quatro pré-escolas municipais (três em São Paulo e uma em Bolonha) que desenvolvem práticas de registro e documentação como elemento de seu projeto coletivo. A investigação pautou-se na concepção de criança como pessoa, sujeito de direitos e produtora de cultura, e de infância como categoria social (QVORTRUP, 1993; SARMENTO, 2007; CORSARO, 2002). No campo da Educação Infantil, partimos do reconhecimento da função social de creches e pré-escolas, concretizado em um projeto político-pedagógico apto a conferir identidade a essa etapa educacional e pautado na promoção de múltiplas experiências de aprendizagem e desenvolvimento, considerando as especificidades da criança pequena (KRAMER, 1986, 1997). Partimos, ainda, do conceito de documentação pedagógica como atividade de recuperação, escuta e reelaboração da experiência por meio da narração de um percurso e da explicitação de pressupostos das escolhas realizadas (PASQUALE, 2002; OLIVEIRA-FORMOSINHO, AZEVEDO, 2002; BENZONI, 2001, entre outros), atividade que se relaciona ao planejamento, à avaliação e à reconstrução do projeto político-pedagógico. Como resultados, apontamos para a historicidade das práticas de registro e documentação construídas pelos diferentes coletivos institucionais em sua interação com os desafios concretamente vivenciados pelos sujeitos; a documentação pedagógica, portanto, relaciona-se ao projeto político-pedagógico institucional, e configura-se em diferentes modalidades, não se podendo falar em um único modo de fazer, por se tratar de uma postura ou concepção. O registro e a documentação pedagógica possibilitam a construção de memória e autoria, a reflexão sobre as práticas, a visibilidade do trabalho pedagógico, a comunicação e a aproximação às famílias, o que pode ser potencializado quando a atividade é assumida pelos coletivos institucionais. Em última instância, há que considerar o registro e a documentação como aspectos inerentes a um projeto pedagógico para a infância, o que deve ser reconhecido, valorizado e estimulado pelas políticas públicas a partir da consideração das reais necessidades de cada contexto. / The subject of this doctoral research is the register of practices and the documentation as a component of Preschool pedagogical culture. This research is aimed to answer the following questions: How the register of practices and the documentation have been built in the daily Preschool pedagogical work; and what is the relationship between pedagogical documentation and the development of a pedagogy for childhood in the context of an ongoing political-pedagogical project? The general purpose of this research is to analyze the possibilities associated with the introduction of register of practices and documentation in the Preschool as components of the ongoing political-pedagogical project. The specific purposes are: a) to identify and to analyze register and documentation experiences as a component of the organizational culture of Preschool institutions; b) to comprehend the possibilities resulting from registering as an organizational culture and as a pedagogical culture for Preschool; c) to deeply think about the development process of a registering culture in the Preschool; d) to indicate elements to be considered in the Preschool public policies. The methodological procedure consists of collective case study (STAKE, 1994, 1999), or multiple case studies (YIN, 2005). For the production of these case studies, four municipal preschools that develop register of practices and documentation as part of their collective project were analyzed (three among them located at Sao Paulo and one at Bologna). The analysis was based on the conception of child as a person, subject of rights and producer of culture, and childhood as a social category (QVORTRUP, 1993; SARMENTO, 2007; CORSARO, 2002). In the child education area, we started from the acknowledgement of the daycares/creches and preschools social function, achieved through a political-pedagogical project capable of attributing identity to this educational phase, and based on the promotion of several learning and developing experiences, considering the specificities of the child in its early ages (KRAMER, 1986, 1997). We also started from the concept of pedagogical documentation as a revival, listening and re-elaboration activity of the experience by the use of the narration of a path and making clear the prerequisites from the options taken (PASQUALE, 2002; OLIVEIRA-FORMOSINHO, AZEVEDO, 2002; BENZONI, 2001, among others), activity that is related to planning, assessing, and rebuilding the political-pedagogical project. As results, we point out the historical feature of the register of practices and documentation built by different institutional collectives in their interactions with the challenges faced by the subjects; therefore, the pedagogical documentation is related to the institutional political-pedagogical project, and assumes different formats, being impossible to assert that there is a unique way to perform it, since it is posture or concept. The register and pedagogical documentation enable memory formation and authorship, reflection about practices, pedagogical work visibility, communication and nearness to families, which can become stronger whenever the activity is developed by institutional collectives. Finally, register and documentation must be considered as inherent features of a childhood pedagogical project, and this should be recognized, treasured and incited by public policies taking into consideration the actual needs of each context.

Trata-se de uma pesquisa de doutorado que tem por objeto o registro de práticas e a documentação como elemento da cultura pedagógica no contexto da Educação Infantil e visa a responder à seguinte questão: De que maneira o registro de práticas e a documentação vêm sendo construídos no cotidiano do trabalho pedagógico para a Educação Infantil, e qual a relação entre documentação pedagógica e a construção de uma pedagogia para a infância no contexto de um projeto político-pedagógico em ação? Tem como objetivo geral analisar as possibilidades relacionadas à inserção de práticas de registro e documentação na Educação Infantil enquanto elemento constitutivo do projeto político-pedagógico em ação, e como objetivos específicos a) identificar e analisar experiências de registro e documentação como parte da cultura organizacional de instituições de Educação Infantil; b) compreender as possibilidades decorrentes do registro como cultura organizacional e como cultura pedagógica para a Educação Infantil; c) refletir sobre o processo de construção de uma \"cultura do registro\" no contexto da Educação Infantil; d) indicar elementos a serem considerados por políticas públicas para a Educação Infantil. Como procedimento metodológico, foi realizado estudo de caso coletivo (STAKE, 1994, 1999), ou estudo de casos múltiplos (YIN, 2005), no qual foram investigadas quatro pré-escolas municipais (três em São Paulo e uma em Bolonha) que desenvolvem práticas de registro e documentação como elemento de seu projeto coletivo. A investigação pautou-se na concepção de criança como pessoa, sujeito de direitos e produtora de cultura, e de infância como categoria social (QVORTRUP, 1993; SARMENTO, 2007; CORSARO, 2002). No campo da Educação Infantil, partimos do reconhecimento da função social de creches e pré-escolas, concretizado em um projeto político-pedagógico apto a conferir identidade a essa etapa educacional e pautado na promoção de múltiplas experiências de aprendizagem e desenvolvimento, considerando as especificidades da criança pequena (KRAMER, 1986, 1997). Partimos, ainda, do conceito de documentação pedagógica como atividade de recuperação, escuta e reelaboração da experiência por meio da narração de um percurso e da explicitação de pressupostos das escolhas realizadas (PASQUALE, 2002; OLIVEIRA-FORMOSINHO, AZEVEDO, 2002; BENZONI, 2001, entre outros), atividade que se relaciona ao planejamento, à avaliação e à reconstrução do projeto político-pedagógico. Como resultados, apontamos para a historicidade das práticas de registro e documentação construídas pelos diferentes coletivos institucionais em sua interação com os desafios concretamente vivenciados pelos sujeitos; a documentação pedagógica, portanto, relaciona-se ao projeto político-pedagógico institucional, e configura-se em diferentes modalidades, não se podendo falar em um único modo de fazer, por se tratar de uma postura ou concepção. O registro e a documentação pedagógica possibilitam a construção de memória e autoria, a reflexão sobre as práticas, a visibilidade do trabalho pedagógico, a comunicação e a aproximação às famílias, o que pode ser potencializado quando a atividade é assumida pelos coletivos institucionais. Em última instância, há que considerar o registro e a documentação como aspectos inerentes a um projeto pedagógico para a infância, o que deve ser reconhecido, valorizado e estimulado pelas políticas públicas a partir da consideração das reais necessidades de cada contexto. / The subject of this doctoral research is the register of practices and the documentation as a component of Preschool pedagogical culture. This research is aimed to answer the following questions: How the register of practices and the documentation have been built in the daily Preschool pedagogical work; and what is the relationship between pedagogical documentation and the development of a pedagogy for childhood in the context of an ongoing political-pedagogical project? The general purpose of this research is to analyze the possibilities associated with the introduction of register of practices and documentation in the Preschool as components of the ongoing political-pedagogical project. The specific purposes are: a) to identify and to analyze register and documentation experiences as a component of the organizational culture of Preschool institutions; b) to comprehend the possibilities resulting from registering as an organizational culture and as a pedagogical culture for Preschool; c) to deeply think about the development process of a registering culture in the Preschool; d) to indicate elements to be considered in the Preschool public policies. The methodological procedure consists of collective case study (STAKE, 1994, 1999), or multiple case studies (YIN, 2005). For the production of these case studies, four municipal preschools that develop register of practices and documentation as part of their collective project were analyzed (three among them located at Sao Paulo and one at Bologna). The analysis was based on the conception of child as a person, subject of rights and producer of culture, and childhood as a social category (QVORTRUP, 1993; SARMENTO, 2007; CORSARO, 2002). In the child education area, we started from the acknowledgement of the daycares/creches and preschools social function, achieved through a political-pedagogical project capable of attributing identity to this educational phase, and based on the promotion of several learning and developing experiences, considering the specificities of the child in its early ages (KRAMER, 1986, 1997). We also started from the concept of pedagogical documentation as a revival, listening and re-elaboration activity of the experience by the use of the narration of a path and making clear the prerequisites from the options taken (PASQUALE, 2002; OLIVEIRA-FORMOSINHO, AZEVEDO, 2002; BENZONI, 2001, among others), activity that is related to planning, assessing, and rebuilding the political-pedagogical project. As results, we point out the historical feature of the register of practices and documentation built by different institutional collectives in their interactions with the challenges faced by the subjects; therefore, the pedagogical documentation is related to the institutional political-pedagogical project, and assumes different formats, being impossible to assert that there is a unique way to perform it, since it is posture or concept. The register and pedagogical documentation enable memory formation and authorship, reflection about practices, pedagogical work visibility, communication and nearness to families, which can become stronger whenever the activity is developed by institutional collectives. Finally, register and documentation must be considered as inherent features of a childhood pedagogical project, and this should be recognized, treasured and incited by public policies taking into consideration the actual needs of each context.

This research report aims at analyzing which ontological trends are subjacent to the pedagogical theories and propositions of School Physical Education. The dialectic historical materialism is our basis, as we understand that the immanent categorical complex to these philosophy and theory of knowledge allows us to radically comprehend our case study. Our empirical source was the scientific knowledge production (theses, dissertations, articles and books) related to LEPEL Network, as we depart from the assumption that this knowledge production gives us the necessary theoretical elements to carry out the ontological criticism of the pedagogical theories and propositions of Physical Education. Considering the ―noticed absence‖ of Physical education studies based on the Marxian-Lukacsian ontology, it is necessary to contribute to the debate which has as the underlying core the onto-historical criticism of the individuality formation due to the capitalist sociability, which is strongly based on the exploration of men by men, resulting foremost on the overrating of the surplus value. We have raised the hypothesis that, predominantly, the pedagogical theories and propositions of School Physical Education do not propose ways to appropriation of generic objectivism which may go beyond the immediatism of the student. Thus, the pedagogical praxis is emptied of its essential function, which is to mediate the development of superior psychological functions of the student, taking him/her to the dialectic comprehension of his/her concrete reality. Probably, this is the result of the work with the School Physical Education knowledge, which is structured upon idealistic ontological principles impermeable to the social-historical determinations. Through the analysis of empirical sources, mediated by the philosophical-scientific instruments present on the works of Marx and Lukacs, we reinforce our hypothesis as well as point out to the historical need for the pedagogical theories and proposition to depart from ontological principles aiming at guiding the pedagogical praxis of Physical Education teachers by the way of the perspective of formation of the thing-in-itself individuality. This research report has as teleological horizon the historical socialist project due to the ongoing process of fetishization of human individuality and generality as well as ―schizophrenization of the real‖, mediated by the capitalist sociability. / O presente relatório de pesquisa tem como finalidade analisar que tendências ontológicas subjazem às teorias e proposições pedagógicas da Educação Física Escolar. O materialismo histórico dialético é a nossa base explicativa por entendermos que o complexo categorial imanente a esta filosofia e teoria do conhecimento nos permite apreender radicalmente o nosso objeto de estudo. As nossas fontes empíricas foram as produções de conhecimento científico (dissertações, teses, artigos e livros) engendradas pela Rede LEPEL, pois partimos do pressuposto que essas produções de conhecimento nos fornece elementos teóricos necessários para realizarmos a crítica ontológica das teorias e proposições pedagógicas da Educação Física. Tendo em vista a ―ausência sentida‖ de estudos na Educação Física balizada pela ontologia marxiana-lukacsiana, faz-se necessário contribuir para o debate que tem como pano de fundo a crítica onto-histórica da formação da individualidade mediada pela sociabilidade capitalista, que tem como pedra angular a exploração do homem pelo homem, cuja expressão resultante é a superexploração da mais-valia. Levantamos a hipótese que, predominantemente, as teorias e proposições pedagógicas da Educação Física Escolar não propõem formas de apropriações das objetivações genéricas que possam ir além da imediaticidade do aluno. Sendo assim, a práxis pedagógica é esvaziada de sua função precípua que é mediar o desenvolvimento das funções psicológicas superiores do educando, levando-o à compreensão dialética da realidade concreta em que se encontra. Provavelmente, isto é resultado do trato com o conhecimento escolar da Educação Física que é estruturado a partir de princípios ontológicos idealistas impermeáveis às determinações sócio-históricas do ser social. Através da análise das fontes empíricas, mediada pelo instrumental filosófico-científico presente nas obras marxianas e lukacsianas, reiteramos nossa hipótese, mas também, apontamos para a necessidade histórica das teorias e proposições pedagógicas partirem de princípios ontológicos mediadores na direção de orientar a práxis pedagógica dos professores de Educação Física por dentro da perspectiva da formação da individualidade para-si. Este relatório de pesquisa tem como horizonte teleológico o projeto histórico socialista devido ao processo em curso de fetichização da individualidade e genericidade humana, bem como da ―esquisofrenização do real‖, mediada pela sociabilidade capitalista.

Syftet med denna pilotstudie var att lyfta fram erfarenheter om hur förskollärare hanterar situationer med barn med utmanande beteende i förskolan. Pilotstudien fokuserar på förskollärares erfarenheter av stödåtgärder för att kunna bemöta barn med utmanande beteende samt vikten av kunskaper och möjligheter till vidareutbildning. De frågor som pilotstudien avsåg att besvara var följande: Vilka pedagogiska strategier använder sig förskollärarna av i sitt arbete i förskolan samt finns det möjlighet för förskollärarna att vidareutveckla sina pedagogiska strategier? För att kunna få insikt i problemområdet har vi som utgångspunkt använt oss av ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och genomfört en pilotstudie med enkät som medel för datainsamling. 34 rektorer och totalt 137 förskollärare tillfrågades om de ville medverka i studien. Vårt resultat bygger på svar från sju förskollärare. Samtliga sju förskollärare framhåller att det finns möjligheter till vidareutbildning och att de anser att de får möjlighet att utvidga sina kunskaper via de olika strategier som tillämpas i barngruppen i undervisningen. Sammantaget visar pilotstudien på varierande grundkunskaper utifrån vad förskollärarna fått ta del av under sin utbildning. Men framför allt visar resultaten från pilotstudien att förskollärare faktiskt fått kunskap under sin utbildning i att bemöta barn med utmanande beteende. Samtidigt pekar pilotstudien på vikten av möjligheter till vidareutbildning för att kunna hantera framtida situationer med barn med utmanande beteende. Slutsatsen blir att pilotstudien ger en inblick i ett komplext problemområde där pilotstudien kan ligga till grund fortsatta studier där det kan avsättas mer tid för datainsamling.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Jacqueline D. Spears / There is a growing concern that the number of students graduating with a STEM major in the U.S. is insufficient to fill the growing demand in STEM careers.  In order to fulfill that demand, it is important to increase student retention in STEM majors and also to attract more students to pursue careers in those areas.  Previous research has indicated that children start losing interest in science at the elementary level because science is taught with a focus on learning vocabulary and ideas rather than learning through inquiry-based techniques.  A factor that affects the quality of science education at the elementary level is the preparation of elementary teachers. Many elementary teachers feel unprepared to teach science because they lack adequate content knowledge as well as the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the subject.  Previous studies of teacher preparation in science identified some areas with which pre-service teachers need assistance.  One of these areas is understanding children’s ideas of science. To address that issue, this dissertation investigates whether the use of an instructional approach that teaches physics phenomena along with an understanding of how children think about the physical phenomena promotes changes in students’ knowledge of children’s ideas and use of those ideas in instructional and assessment strategies.  Results indicated that students who were explicitly exposed to knowledge of children’s ideas more often incorporated those ideas into their own microteaching and demonstrated higher levels of sophistication of knowledge of children’s ideas, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies that incorporated those ideas.  This research explores an instructional model for blending physics content and pedagogical content knowledge.

The need to give educators the ability to enter a particular teaching strategy of their choice into an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) and have the ITS respond appropriately to each student has been stated by many researchers. For example, an educator could tell the ITS to keep students within a certain help level ratio (how much help they request), or to introduce a new topic in a particular manner and the ITS simply carries this out at each learning point of interest. Educators could then try new strategies, ones that unaided are impossible to try out in class (such as keeping a student within a help-seeking range) or difficult within an ITS (as the ITS would have to be specially programmed in that way). Current ITSs provide adaptivity to the student at the domain level but not necessarily at the pedagogical level. While a variety of pedagogical strategies have been implemented (e.g. apprenticeship, socratic, practice), there is no system that offers parts or all of these strategies with the ability to choose between them dynamically. In this project, we designed a new framework for an ITS to include multiple, potentially adaptable pedagogical strategies. This was done by breaking up the pedagogical module into separate components. The Pedagogical Strategy Set (PSS) contains all the strategies, written as constraints. The Pedagogical Student Model (PSM) keeps track of which pedagogical strategies were used by each student. Within the ITS, there is still a smaller, separate pedagogical module to deal with domain-specific strategies. The Pedagogical Control Centre (PCC) contains the logic of when and how to use the pedagogical strategies. It gathers its information from the other modules and uses decision logic to trigger strategies. We implemented and evaluated this framework within the context of SQL-Tutor and found that the framework could be used to enter pedagogical strategies, which in turn compared favourably to the original SQL-Tutor. This proof of concept opens up the possibility of the logic and algorithms that could be implemented (e.g. in the PCC) in future ITSs. The PSS is a separate module, written in a different language, independent of ITSs. This could lead to sharing of pedagogical strategies between tutors. Furthermore, students learn differently to each other; this framework allows them to do so.

The riding lesson situation is complex and dynamic. Riding instructors must look at both the horse’s and the rider’s actions in order to provide useful and relevant instruction. The aim of this study is to describe and understand riding instructors’ pedagogical practice when giving riding lessons. The theoretical basis for the study is Engeström’s model for studying activity. His analytical model consists of six interrelated ”knots”. The activity system is continuously active through contradictions between the knots, ”knotworking”. These contradictions can occur at four different levels. By studying them we can arrive at an understanding of the structure of an activity system, in this case riding lessons. Ten riding instructors were interviewed and a number of riding lessons were observed. In collecting data, it was important to capture the use of language in pedagogical terms. The themes that formed the basis of interviews and observations were the concepts of communication, feeling and communication of feeling, as well as the roles of the riding instructor, the pupil and the horse. When the activity model was applied to the data, a number of knots could be observed, with the riding instructor as the subject and the pupil as the object. For example, the tools were horses and instructions. Parents and the riding hall were identified as rules and other riding instructors were the community. Finally, young people assisting the instructors and the pupils with grooming were identified as division of labour. Many of the statements and actions observed during riding lessons can be summarised in that they reflect a focus on the horse. Some riding instructors state unequivocally that what is most important to them is what is best for the horse. I call this an ”activity system with horse focus”. Another variety of statements and actions from the instructors shows an orientation towards the pupils. The instructors say that they have ambitions to support pupils in their learning. This is what I call an ”activity system with pupil focus”. Finally, there are statements and actions by instructors that can be explained by such things as ignorance, indifference or incompetence. One riding instructor says that there is a considerable amount of routine in her lessons. I call this an ”activity system with routine focus”. In this activity system the objects and goals often change places, unlike what happens in the other two activity systems. For different reasons, occasionally the routine focus switches into the other two activity systems. Contradictions were seen at four different levels within the three activity systems identified, e.g.: (1) riding instructors wanting to communicate with their pupils about the feeling of riding but lacking the words for it; (2) parents expecting that their child will get the opportunity to ride at every lesson and riding instructors feeling a pressure to meet these expectations even though they believe that the pupils need theory as well as practice; (3) the instructor wanting to improve her teaching but being inhibited by old traditions; and (4) modern teaching methods having developed within the general school system that require pupils to assume a degree of responsibility for their own learning. This stands in contradiction to the controlled riding lesson where pupils do not have much scope for acting on their own. Riding instructors give priority to the pupils or the horses to different degrees. They often act more or less subconsciously when they give pupils instruction or give them feedback. The horses are at the centre of the riding school and the riding lesson. The horses are a large part of the riding instructors’ everyday life and influential on their thinking about riding instruction. From an educational perspective, however, it would be desirable for instructors to place pupils and their learning at the centre. The need for and importance of pedagogical and didactic education for riding instructors ought to be emphasised. It is a challenge to develop riding lessons with an emphasis on optimising the conditions for pupils’ learning without taking the focus away from the horse and its wellbeing.

Because of the highly complex expectations of new nursing graduates "nursing education needs teachers with a deep nursing knowledge who also know how to teach and conduct research...in order to address the specific educational demands of teaching the complex practice of nursing" (Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, & Day, 2010, p. 6). Currently, the educational requirement for a nurse educator in a university setting is a doctoral degree, preferably a PhD. However, Cronon(2006) emphasized that "many PhD recipients are ill prepared to function effectively in the settings in which they work...particularly those related to teaching" (p. 5). The purpose of this study was to document the perceptions of experienced nurse educators both prepared, and currently preparing at the doctoral (PhD) level, to understand to what extent PhD work prepared them for their role in the delivery of nursing education. A case study approach was selected, using a constructivist paradigm. Data were collected from ten participants at three sites of a university school of nursing using three semi-structured interviews. Primary data were supplemented by institutional foundation documents and a field journal. Four themes emerged from the data as follows: the ambiguities associated with the interpretation of the term nurse educator influenced how a nurse educator described their role; doctoral (PhD) education enhanced approaches to thinking in relation to increased breadth and depth of knowledge base, in addition to research capabilities; the PhD credential was found to be indicative of research credibility both within and across the disciplines and enhanced the potential for funding opportunities; and doctoral (PhD) education did not support the pedagogical aspects, specifically formal teaching preparation, of the nurse educator's role. While this study provided insight in understanding how doctoral (PhD) education supported experienced nurse educators in their roles, it identified issues that impacted on how these nurse educators enacted their roles. These issues included both a disconnection and a perceived inequality between research and teaching, in addition to a marked variation in the interpretation of the scholarship of teaching. Among the implications of this study on theory are its contributions to understanding the experiences of nurse educators in relation to their doctoral (PhD) education as supporting their roles in the delivery of nursing education. Among the implications of this study for research is the need to investigate how doctoral (PhD) education could better support the pedagogical aspect of nurse educators' roles, or whether other doctoral (EdD) education might be more effective in providing this pedagogical foundational knowledge. Additional implications of this study for research are to identify ways in which thinking, research, and practice could function collectively, rather than as separate entities. Among the implications for practice are a greater understanding of the teacher-scholar model in relation to the components of discovery, integration, application, and teaching (Boyer, 1990), and how learning organizations and communities of knowledge could facilitate this deeper understanding.

Ellipsis is a phenomenon whereby constituents which are normally obligatory in the grammar are omitted in actual discourse. It is found in all types of discourse, from everyday conversation to poetry. The omitted constituents can range from one word to an entire clause, and recovery of the ellipted item depends sometimes on the linguistic and sometimes on the non-linguistic context. From a practical point of view, the contribution of ellipsis in the context is twofold. First, it is one of several important means of achieving cohesion in a text. Secondly, ellipsis contributes to communicative appropriateness determined by the type of linguistic activity (e.g., narrative, casual conversation), the mode of communication (e.g., written / spoken) and the relationship between participants. The aim of this research is to provide a description of the functions of elliptical utterances – textual and interpersonal – in English and Japanese, based on a cross-linguistic analysis of dialogues in the English and Japanese map task corpora. In order to analyse ellipsis in relation to its two key functions, elliptical clauses in the map task dialogues were examined. I discuss how ellipsis is used to realise cohesion in the map task dialogues. The findings challenge the well-known claim that topics are established by full noun phrases, which are subsequently realised by pronouns (English) and null pronouns (Japanese). Rather, the results suggest that full noun phrases are used for topic continuity in both languages. Constituents which are ellipted in an utterance are identified and related to the moves types which the utterance realises within the exchange structure. The ellipted elements will be categorised according to the constituent types (Subject, Finite, Predicator, Complement and Adjunct), using the systemic functional approach. This analysis reveals that whereas in the English dialogues the most common types of ellipsis are that of Subject and Finite elements, in the Japanese dialogues the most common type is that of Subject. Types of ellipsis are also correlated with speech acts in the dialogues. The relation between types of ellipsis and particular speech acts associated with them is strikingly similar in the English and Japanese dialogues, despite the notable difference in grammar and pragmatics between the two languages. This analysis also shows how these types of ellipsis are associated with interpersonal effects in particular speech acts: ellipsis of Subject and Finite can contribute to a sharp contrast in the question and answer sequence, while Subject ellipsis in Japanese can contribute to modifying the command-like force in giving instructions. These effects can be summed up as epistemic and deontic modality respectively. Ultimately, it is argued that some types of ellipsis can serve as modality expressions. Additionally, in comparison to the way of realising the speech act of giving instructions in the English dialogues, it emerges that the Japanese speakers exploit ellipsis, which seems to be associated with lowering the degree of the speaker’s commitment to the proposition. As implications for pedagogical settings, I present pedagogical descriptions of ellipsis for Japanese learners of English and English learners of Japanese. Since the description is for specific learners, the approach which takes the difference in grammar and pragmatics between the two languages is made possible. Although descriptions state some detailed facts of ellipsis in English and Japanese, primarily highlighted is the importance of raising awareness of elliptical forms for particular functions in particular contexts. As ellipsis is a product of forms, functions and contexts, it is a most remarkable feature of spoken language. Spoken language is claimed by some researchers to show similar linguistic features among languages because of the restrictions inherent in the medium on communication. In the form of pedagogical description, I show the similarities and differences in ellipsis which derive from the grammar and pragmatics of each language, which are observed in the preceding linguistic research. Through the presentation of the findings which are modified for learners, learners will know how languages show convergence and divergence cross-linguistically.