Harry Kempen
In the 1990s, Kempen and Hubert Hermans developed a new approach in cultural psychology around the concept of the dialogical self. In 1993, they published the seminal work "The dialogical self: Meaning as movement", and published several articles in "American Psychologist", "Journal of Personality" and "Theory & Psychology". Despite their success Kempen suffered from depression. In 2000, he died in Nijmegen four days before his retirement from the Radboud University. At the university he is remembered by as the "personification of cultural psychology."Articles, a selection:
Dialogic education
In teaching through the opening of a shared dialogic space, dialogic education draws students into the co-construction of shared knowledge by questioning and building on dialogue rather than simply learning a set of facts. As argued by Bakhtin, children learn through persuasive dialogue rather than an authoritative transmission of facts, which enables them to understand by seeing from different points of view. Merleau-Ponty writes that when dialogue works it should no longer be possible to determine who is thinking because learners will find themselves thinking together. It has been suggested by Robin Alexander that in dialogic education, teachers should frame questions carefully in order to encourage reflection and take different student’s contributions and present them as a whole. In addition, answers should be considered as leading to further questions in dialogue rather than an end goal.