Social influences on children's development of relational thinking during small-group discussions

• The development of relational thinking is contingent upon those with whom students interact and patterns of dialogic interaction.
• Socially centered students play an influential role in creating a stimulating and friendly discussion environment.
• Speaking up to support friends' arguments provides opportunities for students to improve their relational thinking.
• Quiet students become less likely to disagree with others over the discussions, but would generate refutational relations when they do disagree.

This microgenetic study strived to understand instantaneous peer influences on the moment-by-moment and session-by-session development of relational thinking within and across dialogic small-group discussions using an approach called Collaborative Reasoning. An analysis encompassing 32,511 turns for speaking during 176 discussions indicated that peer support and refutation influenced the development of relational thinking within (micro-level) and across (macro-level) discussions, and was mediated by friendship and peer status. Support was mainly mediated by friends and children with high status. Observing reciprocated friends' supportive talk encouraged students to generate confirmational relational thinking in the next turn for speaking. Refutation was mainly mediated by children with high status. Quiet students generated less refutation. The study documents the proximal effects of peer status and friendship on the social and cognitive dynamics of collaborative discussions.