The Materiality of the Pedagogical Encounter Implication of an Actor-Network Theory Educational Analysis

Abstract

Pedagogical analyses have traditionally centered on teachers and students. Some approaches, like Reggio Emilia have moved beyond the binary to include the environment as a third entity. While including the environment is, no doubt, important in recognizing the composition of pedagogical encounters, we propose to expand our understanding of pedagogical encounters further to include the actors whose agency might be playing a role in their conceptualization.  Drawing on Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and related educational scholarship, we examine the materiality of a pedagogical encounter and consider all those varied and diverse entities, their associations, and accorded agency, that bring them into being and have implications in the becoming of students.  The point of understanding pedagogical encounters from an ANT perspective is that it allows us to challenge taken-for-granted notions about what pedagogical encounters entail and the becoming of students within them.