"You understand, but you don't believe it": Tracing the stabilities and instabilities of interaction in a physics classroom through a multidimensional framework

This article develops a multidimensional framework for analyzing an extended classroom interaction in an effort to understand the resources participants draw on, the alignments they form, and the meanings and context they construct. The framework is comprised of six different dynamics identified in the interaction: focal, conceptual, institutional, discursive-symbolic, social, and affective. These dynamics, which we term (in)stabilities, provide a way of understanding the complex coordination of relatively stable aspects of the interaction by participants as well as the highly unstable negotiations of meaning. Interrelated with the construction of context, we consider how participants negotiate their positions, focusing especially on one resistant student. By considering the extended interventions made on her behalf, we address why it is that she remains unconvinced of others' arguments and evidence. In conclusion, we consider the implications of the (in)stabilities framework, as well as of this particular classroom interaction, for research and instruction.