Notes on Similarities and Differences in Studying Argumentation: A Synthetic View

The empirical studies presented in this volume have focused on the most representative educational contexts, such as family (parent-child and couple interactions) and school (primary and middle school, higher education, pre-service teachers), and on the professional situations that have attracted, in the last years, a particular attention by researchers interested in argumentation, namely the medical contexts (doctor-patient, health institutions and nurse interactions) and new media (online debates, Wikipedia). Taken together, the studies proposed by this volume provided a comprehensive discussion of selected theoretical and empirical issues at the forefront of research, and ensured a view of how interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts is presently questioned and investigated. The common issues of this volume concerned the analysis of how people argue in different contexts in order to identify similarities and differences in the modes and concepts related to specific fields, and to examine argumentative strategies that are suitable for learning, knowledge orientation and decision-making processes.