Shifts in trajectories in thought communities and “wobbly” identities enacted in computer-mediated classroom discussions

What it means for a diverse group of students to be taking a course together is explored with data from a graduate seminar that included oral and online written discussion at every class meeting. Analysis of written discussions, surveys, and reflection papers suggested that the students enacted different positional identities and engaged to different degrees with the course as discussion topics changed. Findings highlighted how students with different sociocultural pasts and projected futures can come together for a semester to construct knowledge and identities as reflected in and mediated by their positionings in discussion and by the different thought communities that each student aspires to join in the future, here termed their imagined future thought communities.