A Question of Answers

In the early 1970s, the problem of arousing and maintaining the curiosity of children had been a recurrent theme in reports concerned with the development of new school curricula. However, before these ideas could be translated into soundly based practical measures, an increased understanding of what is involved in the activities of questioning and answering was needed.

Originally published in 1972, the research reported in these two volumes presents a theoretical framework for describing linguistic features of a range of verbally expressed answers and their associated questions. Basil Bernstein’s theory is used to generate a number of predictions about the variety and quality of answers that mothers and children are likely to offer to ‘wh’ questions. The usefulness of the scheme is tested against the answering behaviour of members of different social classes, and, in the main, Bernstein’s predictions are supported. The validity of the categories in the classificatory scheme is explored more fully in later chapters by means of a correlational analysis of the answers of seven-year-old children.

Volumes sold separately.