Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge. [1]
Mercer grew up in Cockermouth in Cumbria, where he went to Cockermouth Grammar School before studying psychology at the University of Manchester. He has a PhD in psycholinguistics from the University of Leicester. [2] His research explores the role of dialogue in education and the development of children's reasoning. [2]
He is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Director of the study Centre Oracy Cambridge and a Life Fellow of the college Hughes Hall. [2] [3] Prior to moving to the University of Cambridge, he was Director of the Open University's Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technologies (CREET). [2] and a member of the Centre for Language and Communications. He was previously co-editor of the journal Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, [4] editor of the journal Learning and Instruction [5] and the International Journal of Educational Research.
Mercer has emphasised the use of language to "inter-think" and build "common knowledge" – shared understandings and perspectives to work together, particularly in classrooms. [6] From Common Knowledge [6] onwards his work has been explicitly Vygotskian in nature, fitting into a wider sociocultural and dialogic learning focus in education. (See e.g. [7] ) However, in contrast to Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, Mercer proposes we consider the 'Intermental Development Zone' [8] – the space that language creates which allows peers to interact and develop their reasoning together, in the absence of a guiding teacher. This work is cited as important in development of understanding of language for learning. [9]
Mercer's key interest is in the quality of talk and its impact on educational outcomes, including talk in the home [10] for example, arguing that "'social interaction and collaborative activity' in class can provide 'valuable opportunities' for learning" [11] and that classroom talk should be oriented around co-operation rather than competitiveness, to encourage exploratory talk rather than disputational [11] where the former focuses on explaining ideas, listening to others, and the building of mutual understanding and the latter on a lack of constructive argument which is characterised by disagreement with little explanation. [12] Research exploring this typology and its third component – cumulative talk, in which ideas are shared but not built upon or critically analysed – has found "evidence of the link between the development of children's communication skills and improvements in their critical thinking.", [13] leading to the suggestion that there should be more focus on these skills in classrooms, and commensurately teacher education programs, [14] [15] including in the context of computer use. [16] [17] This approach has been termed (and researched under the banner of) "Thinking Together". [18] This approach has been used internationally particularly in Mexico (see e.g. [19] ) and recently Chile. [20] Mercer's research into the educationally salient components of discourse has been grounded in 'sociocultural discourse analysis' – a theory to which he has contributed. [21] Sociocultural discourse analysis focuses on what language is used to do, and in Mercer's work, how it is used to share meaning, create common knowledge, [6] and interthink. [21]
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