Becoming a Classroom Community
A Reflexive Qualitative Analysis of Year-4 children’s Lifeworlds of Teamwork in a Melbourne Primary School
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21297113 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elise Waghorn (0000-0001-6110-3845, RMIT University, corresponding author), Nicola Yelland (0000-0002-3096-5845, The University of Melbourne) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-07 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Educational Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1005 • E-ISSN: 1467-8527 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00071005.2026.2655752 |
| OpenAlex | W7151287420 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
This article explores how children’s everyday lifeworlds shape participation in classroom communities and the development of scholarly habitus. Drawing on a qualitative study in one Melbourne primary school, fifty Year 4 children (aged 9–10) completed ‘learning dialogues’ across a school week, producing written and drawn reflections on what they looked forward to, how they felt about school, and why these experiences mattered. Reflexive thematic analysis, informed by sociocultural concepts of lifeworlds and habitus, identified two themes: Teamwork (coordination, role-taking, planning talk) and Becoming a community (belonging, transition, and relational warmth). Children consistently linked enjoyment, motivation, and confidence to collaborative experiences such as the ‘Christmas Cup.’ We argue that dispositions for participation are social accomplishments emerging through routine collaboration within stable classroom ecologies, offering a child-centred account of engagement that complements test-based measures of success
Discourse analysis · Qualitative analysis · Qualitative research · Reflexivity · Teamwork · Work (physics) · Collaborative Teaching and Inclusion · Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics · Parental Involvement in Education
Taking a Step Away from Modernity
Researching children’s lifeworlds through an innovative case study methodology
Towards learning dialogues as data
Discipline, Consciousness and the Formation of a Scholarly Habitus
In School for After School
Teacher classroom management self-efficacy
It’s part of our community, where we live’
The bright and the dark side of peer relationships
Time, space and the scholarly habitus
Using thematic analysis in psychology
It's all becoming a habitus
Sound, Presence, and Power
Cultural Capital, Gender, and School Success
Giving Voice to Children's Voices
| Highly cited | No |
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