Democratic Dialogic Education For and From Authorial Agency: An Interview with Professor Eugene Matusov

In this multi-topic interview, Professor Eugene Matusov from the School of Education at the University of Delaware discusses the desirability and necessity for a psychological and educational shift from knowledge, ability, and skill to dialogically and a democratically understood notion of authorial agency. In this discussion, Professor Matusov tells about his own transition from his interest in Vygotsky to Bakhtin, discusses conceptual and ethical tensions among these scholars, and how his pedagogical practice informs his educational research. Professor Matusov provides a somewhat optimistic view on the transition of our society from knowledge-based to agency-based and discusses the role of education in this transformation. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed following closely the discussion. We tried to preserve both orality and the Russian and Serbian accents of the participants without sacrificing the readability of the text.