Interactional resources used in dialogues between pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties and staff in the special school

Much of the research on school settings for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) has focused on the pupils special needs as learners and on what special skills teachers need to work effectively with the pupils (Ware, 2005 ; Nind, 2007 ). In a Swedish context there has been some research from an interaction point of view on pupils with PMLD focusing the interaction with their parents (Wilder, 2008 ), some research (Anderson, 2002 ) with a focus on interaction between pupils and staff has been made in a training school context. In the work with my thesis the overall aim is to explore, describe and analyze the use of interactional resources in everyday life in the special school and to explore how the pedagogical praxis is constructed out of the use of the participants’ interactional resources. The study also tries to explore what kind of learning- and socialization processes the special school setting offers the participants. This paper tries to explore interactional resources used by staff (teachers and assistants) and pupils with PMLD in everyday life situations in special school classrooms with a focus on what resources is used when members of the staff or pupils are trying to initiate and maintain interaction with each other. The study draws on a theoretical framework that is influenced by ethnometodological work, where the participant’s social actions and the participant’s methodical ways of making sense in a social setting are in focus. The design of the project is inspired by an ethnographic approach and is constructed as a classroom study. The empirical material is collected by participatory observations, by video recordings and by focus group sessions with the members of the staff. The data presented in this paper derive from video recordings that were made during spring 2009 in two training school classes and all together eight pupils (age 8-17 - two boys and six girls) and 10 members from the staff (two special teachers, music teacher, psychical education teacher and six assistants - all women) participated in the study. In this paper a small portion of the total video recordings (about 50 hours) is transcribed and analyzed. Detailed transcripts have been made out of the data from video recordings using conversation analytic notations considering both verbal and non verbal actions in the interaction between pupils and staff members. The analytic approach is inspired by Conversation Analysis (CA) and provides detailed analysis of the use of interactional resources used when the participants in the material initiates and tries to maintain interaction with each other. The results in this study are supposed to be of relevance for the understanding of the pedagogical praxis in the special schools and by studying interaction between pupils and staff in the special schools this paper also intend to explore patterns in the interaction and bring new perspectives on teaching and interaction in the special school for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties