Children’s invoking of school rules in directive sequences with adults at home and school : mobilizing the teacher and school artefacts as authoritative sources

This paper illustrates a practice that children aged 6–10 years old deploy in response to adults’ directives both in the classroom and during homework completion at home: invoking school rules that contradict the directive. Based on 70 h of video-recorded interactions between adults and children and adopting a conversation analytic approach, the article illustrates that children invoke school rules (i.e., obligations, habits, and expectations regarding appropriate ways of conduct at school) in two ways: by reporting teachers’ claims and conduct, and/or by making relevant a school textual artefact in the environment. This practice has relevant consequences on the unfolding of the directive sequence: vis-à-vis the child’s invoking of school rules, adults variously modify their directive trajectory by changing the addressee or content of the directive, by mitigating its directiveness, and/or by finally abandoning the directive sequence. It is argued that, by countering the directive with school rules, children present themselves as more knowledgeable on the specific rule than their adult interlocutor, framing themselves as the ones having the right to decide on the issue. In so doing, children locally challenge the asymmetrical authority relationship projected by the adult’s directive.