Rupert Wegerif (born 2 September 1959) is a professor of education at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in England.

Overview

Prof. Wegerif is a writer and researcher in the field of

dialogic education Dialogic learning is learning that takes place through dialogue. It is typically the result of egalitarian dialogue; in other words, the consequence of a dialogue in which different people provide arguments based on validity claims and not on pow ...

and dialogic education with technology. He has proposed a

dialogic Dialogic refers to the use of conversation or shared dialogue to explore the meaning of something. (This is as opposed to monologic which refers to one entity with all the information simply giving it to others without exploration and clarificatio ...

theory of education for the AI-Enhanced Internet Age, and conducted research on education technology as a support for teaching dialogue in classrooms as well as designing for dialogue with the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. He was the founder of the

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

journal '' Thinking Skills and Creativity'' and lead editor until 2017. He is founder and director of the Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI) at

Hughes Hall, Cambridge Hughes Hall is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The majority of students are postgraduate, although nearly one-fifth of the student population comprises individuals aged 21 ...

Education

Wegerif studied

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

with

Social Anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

(1980–83), began a PhD on

Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...

and

Millenarianism Millenarianism or millenarism () is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which "all things will be changed". Millenarianism exists in various cultures and re ...

at the

in 1984 which he did not complete, did a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) specialising in

Religious Education In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term ''religious instruction'' would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with ''religious education'' referring to t ...

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

from 1990 to 1991 and a Masters in

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

at Queen Mary and Westfield College,

London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

, 1991 to 1992 followed by a PhD in

Education Technology Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning and teaching. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", ...

at the Institute of Education Technology in the UK

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

, 1992 to 1996. His topic was ‘Using computers to teach reasoning through talking across the curriculum’. Neil Mercer was one of his supervisors, the other was Pat Fung

Career

Wegerif began his academic career at the Open University working with Neil Mercer on a range of funded projects to explore the impact of teaching ‘Exploratory Talk’ on learning, especially on learning with computers. In 2004, he went to the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

as a Reader and in 2006 he joined the University of Exeter as a professor. In 2017, Wegerif became the Professor of Education (2000) at the

Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge is the School of Education at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It was established in 2001. It is part of the school of humanities and social sciences at the University of Cam ...

. There he is a member of the Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research Group (CEDiR). In November 2017, Wegerif was awarded a Fellowship at Hughes Hall College (Cambridge). He founded the Digital Education Futures Initiative at Hughes Hall Cambridge in 2020. He was the first Managing Director of this new 'think and do' centre moving on to be the Academic Director in 2022. He is known for developing a dialogic theory of Education. This argues for the importance of dialogue as an aim of education as well as being a means to education. Wegerif understands learning as being motivated by relationships and taking the form of 'dialogic switches' whereby students take on different perspectives within already existing dialogues. The originality of the theory lies in the focus on the significance for development of the 'dialogic gap' between perspectives. This leads to a model of development that is not primarily characterised in terms of individual identities or expanding knowledge but in terms of expanding 'dialogic space'. Education is understood as opening, widening and deepening dialogic space through dialogue with specific others, cultural ‘general others’ personifying communities of practice and also ‘the Infinite Other’. The ‘Infinite Other’ is the idea that the unbounded horizon of knowledge can act as a voice within educational dialogues. His recent work outlines the role of technology in education for expanding dialogue. Wegerif has gained significant sums in research funding for projects exploring diversity in science education and developing tools to support Learning to Learn Together (L2L2) online. In 2006, he founded the journal '' Thinking Skills and Creativity'' with Anna Craft. They edited the journal together until Anna Craft's death in 2014. Wegerif remained chief editor of the journal through June 2018, and was subsequently replaced by Teresa Cremin and Pamela Burnard.

Books

Wegerif's books include: *Wegerif, R.(2025) Rethinking Educational Theory: Education as Expanding Dialogue. Edward Elgar. *Wegerif, R., & Major, L. (2023). The Theory of Educational Technology: Towards a Dialogic Foundation for Design (1st ed.). Routledge. *Kershner, R., Hennessy, S., Wegerif, R., & Ahmed, A. (2020). Research Methods for Educational Dialogue. Bloomsbury Publishing. *Mercer, N., Wegerif, R., & Major, L. (2019). The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. Routledge. *Kerslake, L. and Wegerif, R. (Eds.) (2018) The Theory of Teaching Thinking. International Perspectives. Routledge *Phillipson, N and Wegerif, R (2017). Dialogic Education: Mastering core concepts through thinking together. London and New York, Routledge. *Wegerif, R, Li, L. and Kaufman, J.C. (Eds.)(2015) The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking, Routledge. *Wegerif, R (2013) Dialogic: Education for the Internet Age. London: Routledge *Mansour, N and Wegerif, R. (Eds.)(2013) Science Education for Diversity. New Jersey: Springer *Wegerif, R (2010) Mind-Expanding: Teaching for Thinking and Creativity. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press/mcgraw Hill *Wegerif. R. (2007) Dialogic, Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning. New York: Springer-Verlag. *Williams, S and Wegerif, R. (2005) Radical Encouragement: Changing cultures of thinking. Birmingham: Imaginative Minds. *Wegerif, R. and Dawes, L. (2004) Thinking and learning with ICT: raising achievement in primary classrooms. London: Routledge. *Dawes, L., Mercer, N. And Wegerif, R. (2004 2nd Edition) Thinking Together: A programme of activities for developing speaking, listening and thinking skills for children aged 8–11. Birmingham: Imaginative Minds Ltd. *Wegerif, R. and Scrimshaw, P. (Eds.) (1997) Computers and Talk in the Primary Classroom. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

References

External links

Rupert Wegerif website

Rupert Wegerif homepage at the University of Cambridge

Rupert Wegerif page at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wegerif, Rupert 1959 births Living people Alumni of the University of Kent Alumni of the Open University Alumni of the University of Bristol Alumni of Queen Mary University of London Academics of the University of Southampton Academics of the University of Exeter English educational theorists British academic journal editors