When and how peers give reasons: justifications in the talk of middle school children

The ability to justify one's beliefs or actions requires linguistic, social, and cognitive skills, including an understanding of the psychological states of others and the negotiation of a socially-sensitive discourse. The production of verbal justifications was examined both quantitatively and qualitatively in eight pairs of eight- to eleven-year-old children whose natural discourse was videotaped, transcribed and coded for justifications. Previous research has frequently studied justifications in conflicts; children in this study produced most of their justifications both in the context of elaborating on a previously asserted claim and in conflicts. The statement justified and the justifications themselves most frequently focused on facts, evaluations, actions, and habitual characteristics or occurrences. A majority of the justifications were produced to support a statement which had some negative valence to it. Although causal connectives have previously been often used as the means for determining justifications, the children in this study rarely used causal connectives and mental verbs in statements with justifications. A qualitative analysis of the discourse of the dyads revealed differences in conversational styles which produced very different types of justifications. Some dyads made frequent use of narratives and co-constructed justifications; other dyads generally produced very short, often isolated justifications.