Mediation Revisited: The Interactive Organization of Mediation in Learning Environments

This article is concerned with the social organization of mediation in learning environments. It seeks to further articulate the sociocultural notion of mediation in sociointeractional terms, combining insights from the sociocultural approach to cognition and the microinteractionist, especially ethnomethodological approach to social activities. A microanalysis of mediation in communicative 2nd-language classroom activities where the task at hand is the management of interaction itself is presented. The microanalysis stresses the fact that patterns of social interaction, tasks, and social contexts emerge from locally accomplished socioculturally shaped collaborative activities. The analysis serves as a basis for developing a pluridimensional notion of mediation-in-interaction, which accounts for its reciprocity-based, context-sensitive, and culture-related nature.