Classroom norms as resources: Deontic rule formulations and children's local enactment of authority in the peer group

The paper explores children’s peer co-construction and negotiation of classroom norms, focusing on rule formulations as a resource to assume an authoritative position in the group hierarchy. Drawing from a larger ethnographic research documented with video recordings in two primary schools in northern Italy, this study adopts a CA-informed approach to analyze children’s situated deployment of rules (here, rules regarding academic tasks) after peers’ behavior that is deemed inappropriate. As the analysis illustrates, children formulate ethical and procedural rules with the deontic modality ( must , i.e. the Italian dovere ) in order to a) sanction peers’ previous conduct and/or b) account for a previous action that has been problematized. In the discussion it is argued that such practices are relevant to children’s socialization to expected ways of behaving in the classroom and to the local negotiation of authoritative positions and valued identities within the peer group.