Chapter 12: Dynamic Self Conceptions: New Perspectives to Study Children’s Dialogical Self Development

The paper aims at demonstrating the theoretical-methodological productivity of a new category concerning self-meaning processes, here designated as Dynamic Self Conceptions (DSC). The DSC is a concept currently being used in our work at the Laboratory of Microgenesis in Social Interactions, Brasilia, Brazil, and it is conceived as a unit of analysis somewhat different from the traditional I-Positions. The DSC arose from research data as an alternative to the traditional self-reference constructs, such as self-esteem, self-concept etc, within the context of a study on school children self development. The goal of this study was to construct and analyze self conceptions’ development and dynamics throughout the fourth grade school year of 10 children attending to an Elementary Public School in Brasilia. Diverse methodological procedures were used, particularly individual interviews and focal groups. Here we present the case of Alice, a black 11-year-old girl, which allowed us to conceptualize the DSC as part of the Dialogical Self System. Results show that schooling practices are very meaningful for the development of self conceptions, and DSCs were inferred from indicators drawn from constructed data. School activities that promoted self-evaluation had a special role to foster the emergence, meaning reconstruction, and change of DSC. Children’s active constructions of interpersonal relations, semiotic mediations, and teacher’s actions were fundamental for DSC transformation. The study demonstrates the potential of the DSC construct within the Dialogical Self approach for the study of self development in children. Therefore, it provides a developmental approach to the Dialogical Self theoretical perspective, as well as it offers a contribution to the promotion of children’s education, aiming at promoting children as critical, autonomous, and responsible active individuals, agents of personal and society’s development.