Communication experiences: A constitutive principle in pupils' socialization of agency

This paper provides a discussion of the Special Issue's content from a socialization perspective. The argument is based on a social constructivist understanding of socialization, which highlights the meaning of communication skills with regard to human agency. In order to illustrate the dynamic interrelations between conversational practices, individual skills and habits in diverse social settings, we present a model of “agency as a gearwheel”. Following the traditions of social–ecological research, we argue that a multilevel and methodologically complex investigation of communication practices helps to understand not only the development of individual competencies, but also their context-sensitive impact on educational inequality.