From other to self. Learning as Interactional Change

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to empirically develop the understanding of learning as changing participation. The point of departure is that learning is interactionally and situationally constituted and made visible as changes in participation. The contribution of this study lies in the empirical demonstration of how learning is constructed in systematic changes in participation in interaction. Participation in interaction is studied within a conversation analysis (CA) perspective which adds precision and understanding to the analysis of participation. The data material analysed consists of longitudinal video recordings made in authentic physiotherapy-patient encounters. The analytic focus is on how physiotherapists and patients manage local, “here and now” problems in understanding through the practice of repair. Repair is an “understanding-display device”, a type of check procedure in interaction which is critical to the establishment of intersubjective understanding between people. Changes in the ways of ‘doing understanding’ can be argued to constitute changes in participation.Analytic attention has been turned to the interactional resources that the participants themselves turn their attention to in the organisation of repairs such as the interplay between talk, gaze, gesture, other bodily actions as well as artefacts. A change in participation is evident as a gradual stepwise change in the organisation of repair conceived of as four phases with a change from physiotherapist to patient regarding interaction responsibilities in solving problems. In sum, a successive change for the patient from other- to self-initiated repair, and from other- to self-repair.