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 sta tes of others and the negotiation of a socially-sensitive discourse. The pr oduction of verbal justifications was examined both quantitatively and qual itatively in eight pairs of eight- to eleven-year-old children whose natura l discourse was videotaped, transcribed and coded for justifications. Previ ous research has frequently studied justifications in conflicts; children i n this study produced most of their justifications both in the context of e laborating on a previously asserted claim and in conflicts. The statement j ustified and the justifications themselves most frequently focused on facts , evaluations, actions, and habitual characteristics or occurrences. A majo rity of the justifications were produced to support a statement which had s ome negative valence to it. Although causal connectives have previously bee n often used as the means for determining justifications, the children in t his study rarely used causal connectives and mental verbs in statements wit h justifications. A qualitative analysis of the discourse of the dyads reve aled differences in conversational styles which produced very different typ es of justifications. Some dyads made frequent use of narratives and co-con structed justifications; other dyads generally produced very short, often i solated justifications.