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This work studies verbal conflict between parents and preadolescents through analysis of family dinnertime conversations. We move from the assumption that verbal conflict is an educational instrument of interaction and a tool of socialization. The aim of the research is to analyze the participants' strategies in situations of conflict and to highlight the relations between parents and preadolescents in these specific situations. The data collection methodology is mainly ethnographical: videotape recordings of Italian middle class family dinners (the families were selected as being dual career ones with two children) were fully transcribed and codified following the approach of Conversation Analysis. The results of the quantitative (by the use of the log-linear models) and qualitative analyses confirm the importance of verbal conflict in family context as a particular cultural strategy of relationships between parents and preadolescents. The analytical data underline the relations between different aspects of conflict and the pragmatic implications for all family members at dinnertime conversations.

This paper examines the rhythm and the management of classroom interaction as an important constituent of a teaching-learning process. Twenty-three lessons in 12 classes (four 2nd grades, four 3rd grades and four 4th grades) of state primary schools spread all over Italy were observed and video taped for a total of 15 hours. The descriptive analysis of the collected data revealed a transformation of children’s and class interactivity and a change in the use of turn-taking strategies (overlaps, interruptions and pauses)_from 2nd to 4th grade. Additionally, it showed that: (1) speaker after overlap changes according to the type of overlap; (2) teachers differ from children in their turn-interrupting strategies (teacher interrupts with supportive and silent turns, whereas children with failed or simple interruptions); (3) log-linear analysis revealed that the next speaker was correlated both with the first speaker and pause duration, but these correlations were independent between them. For a more accurate interpretation of the results various aspects characterizing educational and school interaction were taken into account.

The aim of this investigation is to describe planning strategies and ideational processes of dyads of primary school children in a problem solving story completion task. Nine dyads of 2nd graders were asked to fill in the gaps of a 10 sentence story using a piece of computer software.

This study is part of a research project aimed at studying ways and effects of introducing computer use within a context of linguistic education. Linguistic activities, in which language was treated as an object instead of a means of communication, were carried out through a curriculum unit aimed at developing reflection on language. Within the curriculum a new software has been developed and implemented. The software promotes reflection on language and metalinguistic awareness in a social and educational context in wich «playing with language» is stimulated in children. It requires language comprehension and production, and offers to children (working in groups of three) the open task of composing sentences and stories in a problem solving setting. In this study we collected observational data on children’s interactions with the software and used the data as an ecological measure of children’s metalinguistic development. Positiv effects of the curriculum supported by the computer use were verified through measures of metalinguistic skills, investigated through individual interviews and administered also to a matched control group.

In this paper we aim at analyzing the modes of differentiation in children’s writing development during the presyllabic phase that, in the theoretical framework developed by Ferreiro and Teberosky, comes before the discovery of sound correspondance. Seventeen Italian children were interviewed seven times during the implementation of research on «Educational Continuity» between «scuola materna» and primary school. We first examine how minimum quantity and internal variation rules appear in Italian children as organizing principles for controlling quantity and quality of writing, and as necessary conditions for the differentiation process. Starting from this, it is possible to find two differentiation modes in writing; aformal one, and a mode in which some type ofexternal referent is used (meaning or object features). For most children the two modes are alternatives, and passing from one to another is a possible but not necessary step. The external group (which is older) has significantly less quantity repertoire than the formal one: this can explain why looking for an external point of reference can be an outcome of the child’s formal research for differentiating writings.