Carla Pavel

Orders of Dissent. Epistemic Questioning in Primary Schools‘ Classroom Discourse (working title)

This doctoral research project examines knowledge in primary school teaching that situationally oscillates between being open to debate and being fixed. It examines the nature and functionality of epistemic questioning that interactively challenges the conduct of lessons. Therefore, it takes into consideration the interwoven (materialised) school knowledge systems—which are typically structured epistemically in binary terms. The study is embedded within an understanding of teaching grounded in communication theory and informed by practice theory.

Based on an ethnographic research approach, the focus is on situations in which knowledge is interactively produced by pupils in primary school lessons in a manner open to dissent. In this context, oral argumentation in German lessons—framed as a subject-specific object of debate—is considered a particular form of articulating dissent in the classroom. To understand this specific aspect of the phenomenon, the study also explores, within a broader framework, the facets of classroom speech in their subject-specific nuances and functions.

The empirical basis of the study consists of both ethnographic field notes and video data, transcribed into multimodal transcripts, from field research conducted in two primary school classes of the same year group.

Studies and degrees

since 02/2025: Doctoral Researcher in the DFG Graduate School “Subject-Specific Learning and Interaction in Elementary School” (INTERFACH)

2023 – 2025: M.Ed. in Primary School Teaching (German and Music), Ludwigsburg University of Education

2019 – 2023: M.A. in General Pedagogy (M.A. Bildung und Erziehung: Kultur-Politik-Gesellchaft), University of Tübingen (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)

2021 – 2022: Semester abroad (ERASMUS) at Uppsala University (SE) with a focus on “Sociology of Education”

2021: Interdisciplinary study programme of the Tübingen Forum for Science and Humanities on the topic “Truth and Science”

2014 – 2019: B.A. in Primary School Teaching (subjects: German, Mathematics, Music), University of Duisburg-Essen & Folkwang University of the Arts

Professional Experience

2022 – 2024: Head of the International Preparatory Class at a Primary School in Tübingen

since 2020: Freelance Collaborator in the “Modellprojekt Marxloh”, Education Department of the Ruhr Piano Festival (Klavier-Festival Ruhr), Duisburg/Essen

2019 – 2022: Student Research Assistant at the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences (IZEW) in the area ‚Society, Culture and Technological Change‘, University of Tübingen

2019 – 2020: Student Assistant in the Research Group on Migration and Inequality, University of Duisburg-Essen