The common theme running through this compilation of studies is that of taking children's peer talk as a field for research. It seeks to complement the extensive body of language-learning studies that focus on adult-child interactions by theorizing about the discursive practices of children as they interact without adult supervision. It reveals the potential of these interactions in relation to children's acquisition of communicative, cognitive, and social skills. Due to the diverse analytical and methodological approaches with children between three and twelve years old presented, the chapters are organized into two broad sections of peer interactions in first-language and second-language settings.
The introductory section suggests that all of the studies build on Shoshana Blum-Kulka's (2005) conceptualization of peer talk as a ‘double-opportunity space’, where group interactions serve as a ‘space’ for children's co-construction of social worlds and peer cultures and a ‘space’ for children to develop pragmatic skills. By combining these areas into one theoretical concept, it highlights the fact that children's learning processes are situated not only within a developmental model, but also a social-cultural model. Thus, an important aspect of the studies in this volume is the examination of ‘unique social routines, frames of interpretation and linguistic codes’ that can reveal ‘cultural (re-)production in childhood’ and the ‘dialectic … relation between children's and adult's cultures’ (6).
Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 6 provide observations regarding children's perceptions and performances of gender. For example, in Sara Zadunaisky Ehrlich & Shoshana Blum-Kulka's study of preschool children's argumentative discourse, gender attribution and categorization are more flexible in childhood due to children's momentary goals, like the use of a boys’ washbasin by a girl. Chapter 3, by Ageliki Nicolopoulou, Carolyn Brockmeyer Cates, Aline de Sá, & Hande Ilgaz, which looks at preschoolers’ narrative performances, found indications of gendered narrative styles, with girls orienting to the family genre and boys to the heroic-agonistic genre.
Some chapters also reveal the negotiation of social and power relations within peer groups. One of them by Camilla Monaco & Clotilde Pontecorvo adapted studies on leadership roles within adult or adolescent groups to examine group work in two Italian fourth-grade classes with children aged eight and nine. Rather than traditional task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership, they suggest opinion leadership, organizing leadership, and stylistic-expressive leadership as reasons for effective or collaborative group work. Chapter 8 by Ann-Carita Evaldsson & Fritjof Sahlström uses a metasociolinguistic lens, focusing on the stances taken by an immigrant girl and her peers towards Finnish and Swedish as she moved from Finland to Sweden. They show that language choice and competence play an important role in peer alignment and hierarchy within different peer groups. In another study of Turkish children who are second-language learners of Norwegian by Veslemøy Rydland, Vibeke Grøver, & Joshua Lawrence, it is observed that a demonstration of Norwegian proficiency is used by children to position themselves as being at the centre or periphery of peer groups.
Due to the diversity of studies, these are just some of the sociocultural issues presented in this book. For scholars interested in children's talk and culture, this compilation will serve as a good broad overview.
