The Culture of Classroom Silence

The Author: Sandra Leanne Bosacki is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, where she teaches courses in developmental educational psychology and educational research methodologies. She received her Ph.D. in education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She has written numerous articles in professional journals and is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Children's Spirituality. Dr. Bosacki's work is focused on the educational implications of social cognitive development in middle childhood and adolescence.

«Most educators are accustomed to thinking of classrooms as discourse communities, and much of the literature reflects that interest. There are over 22,000 entries on Amazon.com for books dealing with classroom discourse. The other side of discourse is silence. Understanding its sources and functions is equally important. In her far ranging book, Sandra Bosacki has tackled the complex issue of classroom silence with insight and sensitivity. She draws from recent work on Theory of Mind (ToM) to address the developmental meaning and course of silence in children and adolescents. In doing so, she artfully integrates a wide range of issues from academic achievement, to person perception, sexuality, and spirituality as facets of one's life impacted by the positive effects of silent introspection, and negative effects of silence engendered by ostracism, humiliation, and psychic withdrawal. With respect to the latter, Bosacki reaches into her own personal history as well as recent work on adolescent development to shed light on the ways in which reflective adolescents oftentimes silence themselves. Finally, she provides the educator with a psychocultural approach to structuring classrooms to make use of the positive sides of silence, while minimizing the factors that contribute to the negative impact of being silenced. 'The Culture of Classroom Silence' is a breathtaking act of scholarship that makes a substantive contribution to our understanding of development and classroom life.» (Prof. Larry Nucci, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago)