Calling Balls and Strikes: The Question of Authority and Power in Dialogical Education

Abstract

Given both the theoretical and practical complications arising from the use of authority in dialogical education, this article explores the kind of authority that dialogical education presupposes. By referring to the special responsibilities of dialogic teachers, this article claims that questions of authority and power in classroom dialogical practices must be seen as connected to the idea of authentic self-creation – of all involved in the learning process. Next, by applying the notion of publicly shared authority, this article offers a new understanding of authentic authority, one which is most compatible with dialogic practices, enabling educational practitioners to balance inherent tensions or incompatible demands (on teachers and students) that lie at the very heart of dialogical education. Finally, this new understanding of authentic authority is clarified and spelled out by presenting three aspects of ‘openness’, each perceiving authentic authority from different yet complementary points of view.