Development of children argumentation: changes in interactional dynamics and underlying inferential processes

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary and qualitative case study, which considers the argumentative dialogical exchanges, given in a moral dilemma task, of six pairs of boys and girls (5, 8 and 11 years old). The analysis of the information is based on two approaches (Palmieri, 2014), Analytical Overview (AO) of the Pragmadialectics, and the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) of Lugano School. The results indicated that all groups are able to defend their position with at least one argument. However, as schoolchildren grow up, they build much more elaborate argumentation structures and increase the diversity of loci used. It is concluded that the AO and the AMT have proved to be useful tools to describe the argumentative development of schoolchildren as they get older.