After introducing the characteristics of inferential dialectics, we intend to analyze their interpretative potential in the study of social domain knowledge. For this purpose, we will resort to the findings of a study about the conceptual elaboration of the right to privacy by children and adolescents aged 7 to 12 years old in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA) in Argentina (Helman, Horn and Castorina, 2021; Helman and Castorina, 2007; Horn, 2021; Horn, Helman, Castorina and Kurlat, 2013;). During this study, we carried out clinical interviews (Piaget 1926, Delval 2001) and observations of school practices. Our findings showed that the subjects developed 4 groups of ideas about their right to privacy at school. Specifically, we were able to identify a developmental trend starting with the unrecognition of the right to privacy, progressing to a recognition of this right - albeit limited to school context conditions - until reaching the unconditional recognition of it, similar to the one established by the international conventions in force. By unconditional recognition we mean that children assert the right to privacy as an attribute that subjects possess and that no external conditions, such as proper school behavior, can restrict (Helman and Castorina, 2007; Helman, Horn and Castorina, 2021; Horn, 2021). Conditional notions, on the other hand, imply a partial recognition of the right by the subject: to benefit from it, some non-legal requirements must be met, such as behaving well in class. Not all subjects are able to construct unconditioned notions about this right, and when they do, they fail to sustain them throughout all the situations arising during the interview.
This may lead us back to the declaration of the right to privacy as a contingent socio-historical construct, related to disputes, consensus and revisions in social sciences and philosophy, as well as to socio-political struggles (Rosenberg and Sussel Mariano, 2010). It was not until the end of the 19th century that the right to privacy was recognized in the Western world for adults, and in the 1980s for children. The historical and contingent nature of this right prevents us from thinking of it as a natural condition for human beings or as a universal objective to be achieved.
In this sense, study results on the construction of children's knowledge about this right suggest a development of ideas not necessarily oriented towards the definitions of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989) and other declarations of rights (Law 26.061). On the contrary, children understand the right in a more limited way than the latter, given the conditions of the social practices within which they think about the problem, particularly those carried out by teachers. The difference between children's ideas and the declarations of rights prompts us to consider the possible relationship between the cognitive construction of subjects and the declaration of rights. Since it is an indirect relationship, we suggest that the construction of this knowledge by children takes place on the basis of whether or not such a right is embedded in the social practices they participate in.
Within the context of this paper, we return to the findings of this study on the right to privacy (Horn, 2021) in the light of the dialectical inference category. For this reason, we will focus our analysis on two groups of ideas elaborated by children: benefit expectation and conditional right to privacy expectation. Next, we will briefly describe the arguments deployed by children in terms of each group of ideas. On the one hand, benefit expectation implies the non-recognition of the right to privacy; those supporting it, consider that the actions performed by school authorities should result in the well-being of children and prevent them from being harmed. This expectation is justified by arguments sustaining that teachers can have access to their students' personal information. Let's look at an example:
The Interviewer tells a narrative where a teacher reads out a letter that two girls were passing to each other during class and asks: What do you think about the teacher reading the letter to them?
Oriana (7; 6)1: It´s ok
Interviewer: Why?
Oriana: Because in that way she knows what happens or doesn't happen to the girl.
Interviewer: Did you know that a boy your age told me that the teacher was not supposed to read it? Because it was the girl's personal business and the teacher had no business knowing about them.
Oriana: Wrong.
Interviewer: Why?
Oriana: Because afterwards, if she knows what happened to the child, she could help her.
On the other hand, the conditional respect for privacy expectation is an initial discriminatory stage of the right to privacy, while in benefit expectation there was no recognition of it, this new expectation of treating children implies that others should not have access to their personal information. However, the limit to access their personal space is subject to certain constraints that the child or situation must comply with. Relevant to the analysis of the intervention of dialectical inferences in the process of construction of cognitive novelties is that the conditions that limit the right to privacy are identical to those mentioned in arguments used by children to support the benefit expectation. For example:
The interviewer recounts the situation where the teacher reads a letter that two girls handed to each other during class and asks: And that the teacher grabs it and reads it, do you think that... What do you think?
Jazmín (11;2) On the one hand, I don't think it's fair because they could be saying something personal, they don't want anyone to know and the teacher grabs it...
Interviewer: And so, you were saying on the one hand, you think it's unfair, you think it's unfair that she does that?
Jazmín: Yes, unfair on behalf of the teacher -she means she is acting unfairly-, because she has no business taking that paper and reading it if she doesn't know what it's about.
Interviewer: What do you think the teacher should do?
Jasmine: Uh... Call both of them and talk to them.
Interviewer: And is she allowed to read the paper?
Jazmín: No.
[…]
Interviewer: Now, suppose the child was a misbehaving child, always passing papers around and not paying attention in class. So the first time, the teacher does not read it, the second time she does not read it either, but this third time the teacher picks it up and reads it. What do you think about what the teacher is doing?
Jazmín: I think it's because the girl is disturbing others while everybody wants to pay attention. It seems to me that the teacher should take that paper and read it to see what it is about, because they are passing papers to each other all the time.
In the examples presented, the arguments used by Oriana to support the benefit expectation (Oriana: "Because in that way she knows what happens or doesn't happen to the girl") are analogous to those that condition the expectation of the right to privacy in Jazmín's answers ("I think it's because the girl is disturbing others while everybody wants to pay attention. It seems to me that the teacher should take that paper and read it to see what it is about, because they are passing papers to each other all the time."). This suggests that the conditionings to the right to privacy constructed by the subject can be interpreted in terms of the inferential dialectic being the relationship between two systems of ideas in a new totality. These two systems of ideas are, on the one hand, the benefit expectation and, on the other hand, the respect for privacy expectation. In what we have called conditioning, these two systems are interconnected and become part of a new totality. We can say that the arguments of the benefit expectation become a subsystem integrated into the conditional respect for privacy expectation providing, precisely, the conditions that limit the recognition of the right to privacy. In this way we see a development of ideas where the first elaborations of benefit expectations are reorganized into a system of new ideas closer to the recognition of the right to privacy.
Further reasons that enable us using dialectical inferences to interpret this development is a progression towards integration seemingly revealed by the existence of an intermediate moment where these two systems coexist, albeit not fully integrated, in a category we have named alternation between the respect for privacy expectation and the benefit expectation (Horn, 2021). In this case one same child considers two mutually opposing types of expectations, such as:
"Interviewer: recounts the situation where the teacher reads a letter that two girls handed to each other during class and asks "What do you think about what the teacher did?
Gonzalo (10; 2): It's fine.
Interviewer: Why?
Gonzalo: Because when you're in class you don't play, you don't run, you don't pass notes to others. That's for recess.
[...]
Interviewer: Okay. Let me tell you: a boy your age told me that maybe it was not ok that the teacher took it and read it because it was the girls' business and she had no reason for reading it and interfering with their stuff.
Gonzalo: That's fine too.
Interviewer: Why is that okay?
Gonzalo: Because she doesn't have to mess with the girls' stuff.
Interviewer: And what you said before that you thought it was okay for her to read it because it was during class time?
Gonzalo: Well, yes, both of them are fine." (Horn, 2021, p. 11)
We consider that such responses may arise because children only evaluate the beneficial aspect or the respect for privacy aspect, but are unable to integrate both meanings into a greater totality.
This situation can also be understood as a relativization of children's ideas in the constructive process. When children hold benefit expectations, the notion is absolute in nature, as intrusions into their personal space are only interpreted on the basis of this expectation. To the extent that they can interpret the situations presented in the narratives used by the interviewer as an intrusion into personal space, the benefit expectation is relativized as a consequence of starting to alternate and, mainly to bring its meaning closer and closer to the right to privacy, that is, with the acknowledgement of an expectation of respect for privacy, this expectation becomes part of the conditioning factors or is dismissed in the few cases where unconditionality is found.
1 Age in years followed by months.