Children’s Peer Conflict Mediation in the L2 Classroom. A Pedagogical Perspective

This study investigates the practices through which a non-native child mediates peer conflict in the Italian L2 classroom. Data were collected during video-ethnographic research that involved two primary schools in Italy and are analyzed with an approach that combines Conversation Analysis and the use of ethnographic information. The study draws from the paradigm of peer language socialization and illustrates a child’s mediation of peer conflict through the reformulation of the turns of one of the opponents. As the analysis illustrates, a child blames a classmate for a misdeed, trying to elicit an account with the limited competences in his interactional repertoire. Upon failing to do so, a third child intervenes and reformulates the previous contributions in a grammatically and syntactically appropriate way. It is argued that this kind of practice helps non-native children express themselves in the peer group, thereby favouring their apprenticeship period in the new community. At the same time, through this practice children construct a social organization of two-against-one that marginalizes the accused child in the peer group. In this regard, this kind of mediating practice seems to entail opportunities for non-native children’s inclusion in the community as well as risks concerning children’s social exclusion.