Peer dialogue and cognitive development: A two-way relationship?

Over 75 years ago, two books authored by the then young scholar, Jean Piaget, were published in English. One of these books (Piaget 1932) emphasized the role that dialogue between children can play in fostering cognitive growth, with children’s conceptions of morality used for illustration. The other book (Piaget 1926) stressed how the form of children’s dialogue when interacting with peers, particularly their skills of argumentation, is dependent upon their ability to reason. Jointly, in other words, the books promulgate a two-way relation between peer dialogue and cognitive growth: dialogue can promote growth, but as cognition develops, it shapes the form that dialogue takes and, by implication, the manner in which dialogue promotes subsequent growth. Over the past 30 years, a significant body of research has been published that relates peer dialogue to cognitive development. A sample is summarized in the early part of this chapter. As will become clear, much of the research has been directly or indirectly influenced by the work of Piaget. However, the influence is typically from only one of the two strands within Piaget’s writings, the strand concerned with the role of peer dialogue in triggering growth. The converse relation, as developed in Piaget (1926), is overlooked, and as the chapter proceeds, evidence is presented to suggest that this may be a mistake. Thus, the overall conclusion is that even if the focus is dialogic influences upon cognitive growth (as is the case throughout the present volume), the picture is likely to be impoverished unless the two-way relationship highlighted so many years ago is also acknowledged.