The theories of M. M. Bakhtin, philosopher of language, literary critic, and social theorist, have had wide influence in and beyond the academy. Writing in Russia in the years between 1920 and 1960, the period of the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet state, and deeply influenced by those events, Bakhtin's project was to explore and challenge the formalist theories developed by the linguists and literary critics like Saussure and Jakobson. Language, Bakhtin argued, is never a fixed and closed system. Instead, it is a living, ever-changing entity, “social throughout its entire range and in each and every of its factors, from the sound image to the furthest reaches of abstract meaning” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 259).

If Bakhtin's formulations are useful – and the extent to which they have been taken up and explored in the West since the 1980s suggests they are – there are relevant questions to be addressed: how do these formulations apply in settings whose explicit purpose is to support students' language and literacy development (i.e., schools)? To what extent do school settings promote learning through social interaction? What sorts of social interaction take place in those settings? How can we use Bakhtin's insights to provide a richer, more equitable environment for literacy teaching and learning?