The Dog as an Unaware Pedagogical Agent in a School Reading Course

ABSTRACT In this study, we observed pupils reading to a dog in a school reading course and asked: How can the pedagogic rituals of schooling explain the dog’s role as a non-judgmental listener? In a qualitative case-study design, video observation was conducted over seven months in a Norwegian primary school to observe year-three pupils’ (average age 8 years) reading experiences with a dog as part of their ordinary reading instruction course. The dog was a male, 10-year-old standard poodle. The children’s school and their socioeconomic status (SES) were average for Norway. Fourteen children participated, four girls and ten boys, with a total of 112 reading sessions with the dog. Interviews and online data supplemented the observations. A narrative analysis found three main categories of the reading sessions: opening sequence, reading sequence, and concluding sequence. To report our findings in this paper, we present a typical narrative informed by the three categories. We conclude that the role of the dog as a non-judgmental listener in a school reading course can be explained by an invisible pedagogy ritualizing the sessions: The ritual assigns the dog a unique educational role in the school setting as a hybrid between animal and human; an unaware pedagogical agent. When reading to the dog, the instructional intention is reinterpreted as a game of pretense that is potentially enjoyable for the pupils and reduces stress.

Anthrozoological studies of pupils reading to dogs report positive results.Pupils want to read to the dog, and they experience reduced stress and enhanced concentration (Beetz et al., 2011;Jalongo, 2005;Jalongo et al., 2004;Kirnan et al., 2016;Kotrschal & Ortbauer, 2003).Moreover, studies have reported that the act of children reading to a dog is associated with reduced relational aggression (Tepper et al., 2021;Tissen et al., 2007), improved reading ability (Barber & Proops, 2019;Connell et al., 2019;Smith, 2009), improved persistence and motivation (Rousseau & Tardif-Williams, 2019), and experience of achievement when reading (Henderson et al., 2020).The dog's role as a non-judgmental listener is thought to explain the positive outcome of pupils reading to dogs (Hall et al., 2016;Kirnan et al., 2016;le Roux et al., 2014;Uccheddu et al., 2019).It is claimed that anthrozoology, especially when animals are used to assist in interventions (AAI), has a somewhat limited understanding of human-animal interaction unfolding within educational institutions (López-Cepero, 2020).Even though there are specific descriptions of animals in education, and dogs in reading programs (Gee et al., 2015), these studies do not explain the principles that culturally and institutionally underpin this pedagogy.For example, how the dog's presence in a school setting may influence what is expected from the dog himself, teachers, and pupils and how they interact.If anthrozoology is to contribute to pedagogy, research is needed on the cultural aspects of human-animal relations within educational institutions.This paper's contribution to the field is that the dog's role as non-judgmental listener can be explained by seeing that his role functions through the cultural expectations of the schooling institutions and pedagogical rituals (Bernstein et al., 1966(Bernstein et al., , 2000)).The pupils assign the dog a role in the reading sessions based on what they have previously experienced from reading to a "reading buddy" and what they generally have learned to expect when reading aloud in a school setting (Bernstein et al., 1966(Bernstein et al., , 2000)).Hence, this study can add to our knowledge on how cultural expectations influence reading to dogs and explain why the pupils find this activity enjoyable.We find that the sessions are enjoyable because they require a game of pretense, where they pretend that the dog has human characteristics (Tam et al., 2013), a phenomenon not unlike play (Goldman, 1998).Bearing all this in mind, we studied 14 pupils reading to a dog over a seven-month reading course and asked: How can the pedagogic rituals of schooling explain the dog's role as a non-judgmental listener in a school reading course?
Concepts from Anthrozoology Myers and Saunders (2002) describe the role an animal can play when children develop their sense of self, seeing animals as different-yet-similar other beings.Animals are like humans when it comes to evoking emotions but are also different because they do not criticize or talk back.The different-yet-similar aspect also includes anthropomorphic elements, which means that humans tend to ascribe human characteristics to animals (Tam et al., 2013).In the context of this paper, seeing the dog as a different-yet-similar other being is fruitful as the dog does not only have human characteristics, but the culture of the schooling institution also assigns it traits of a pedagogical agent through a ritualized game of pretense (Goldman, 1998).Consequently, for the pupils, it is "as if" the dog becomes a reading buddy.This will be explained empirically in the results section.
Moreover, the biophilia hypothesis, originating from Fromm (1964) and further developed by Wilson (1986), addresses humans' inherent desire to connect with animals.Thus, we will argue that using a dog as a reading companion has different meanings and consequences than reading to, for example, a teddy bear (le Roux et al., 2014).Biophilia can involve a range of affective responses, including the child's curiosity, love, ability to protect, and need for protection.In our material on the pupils' responses when reading to the dog, the love and affection for the dog expressed in the interaction establishes a trusting and safe learning environment.
In the absence of a mutually spoken language, gaze-and touch-mediated bonding (Nagasawa et al., 2015) provides an opportunity to communicate effectively between the two species.As the pupil-dog interaction is the focus of this study, the concept of gaze-and touch-mediated bonding has been applied to analyze and categorize the interactions in the reading sessions.Consequently, from an anthrozoological perspective on pedagogy, three concepts underpin this study's perspective: (1) animals as similar-yetdifferent others; (2) biophilia; and (3) gaze-and touch-mediated bonding.

Concepts from Pedagogy
Socialization and learning can occur regardless of whether or not one pays proposed and planned attention to pupil acquisition.There must be a deliberate educational purpose behind the teaching and learning activities, where the aims and processes for, and results from, this interaction become what we in this paper denote as pedagogy (Bernstein, 2000).In schooling, which is one of the oldest and most stable institutions in modern times, the purpose is to educate children in a society through instruction and enculturation (Herbart & Stern, 2002).Institutional expectations have had a long time to develop, and despite variations in pedagogy in different cultures and across time, the duration of primary education with its assigned functions and roles of teacher, content, and pupils starts to affect children from the first day at school (Willbergh, 2011).The continuous and pervasive schooling tradition leaves a distinct discursive imprint on our society, locally, and globally.Pupils enter this discourse and learn at an early stage that school is a place where instruction and learning unfold within the assigned space of the school, and they learn what is expected from teachers and pupils.This enculturation of children into schooling, of turning them into pupils, can be explained by the concept of pedagogic rituals.Pedagogical rituals establish a consensus of norms and symbolic values (Bernstein et al., 1966).
According to Bernstein, in pedagogy, instructional intentions are more or less visible to teachers and pupils (Bernstein, 2000).The intention of visible pedagogy is visible to the pupils, whereas in invisible pedagogy the instructional intention is primarily visible to the teacher but not to the pupils.The more invisible the pedagogy, the more important are the rituals for instruction to be meaningful.In our case, the intention is to develop the pupils' reading skills, and as the teachers and pupils are aware of this intention it is seemingly visible pedagogy.However, as we will show in the results section, the dog's presence indicates that the situation is dominated by affection through body language.The role of the dog as a non-judgmental listener is created through these expressive means, in our case gaze-and touch-mediated bonding (Nagasawa et al., 2015).When repeated with regularity, the ritual informs, protects, and reinforces this distinct type of expressive pedagogy (Bernstein et al., 1966;Jensen, 2016Jensen, , 2019)).Rituals establish and maintain forms of social practice that are just there, that are unspoken.In the reading sessions in this study, the assignment of the dog as a non-judgmental listener and an unaware pedagogical agent is the result of invisible expectations that are not explained by any of the participants as part of reading the instructions but are clearly understood by the pupils as they go along with the game of assigning the dog a shared human-animal characteristic.
In the results section we will show how the pupils play along with pretending that the dog is a "reading buddy" (anthropomorphizing role-play) (Goldman, 1998;Tam et al., 2013;Willbergh, 2011), and that this role-play presupposes that the pupils are familiar with reading to a human reading buddy, in addition to what they generally have learned to expect when reading aloud in a school setting (pedagogic rituals) (Bernstein et al., 1966(Bernstein et al., , 2000)).

Participants and Procedure
Video observation was conducted over seven months in a Norwegian elementary school, where year-three pupils' reading experiences of having a dog, Bitzer, as part of their usual reading instruction course were observed.As they were scheduled to read for Bitzer, this particular school and class were asked to join the research project.This means that the children had previously seen the dog around the school but had not read to him.The class teacher, the school's principal, the participating pupils, and their parents responded positively to the proposal.The school's performance on standardized tests in reading and mathematics was in line with the national average.Similarly, the level of education, occupations, and average income of the parents of the children who attended the school were representative of the country.
The children reading to Bitzer in this study were four girls and ten boys, all in year three (8 years old).Bitzer was a male, 10-year-old, standard poodle.He was allergy-friendly and was tested for good temperament and had extensive experience as a certified Reading Education Assistance Dog®.
A qualitative case-study approach was used (Yin, 2014), involving 14 children and 224 reading sessions: 112 reading to the dog and the rest to a reading buddy.Both reading sessions had a duration of approximately 15 min.In the initial process, in a small, private room, the children read individually to a male pensioner who served as a reading buddy.The child sat on a sofa; the reading buddy sat on a chair.The reading buddy was the same person in all the reading sessions.This type of reading session represents a conventional part of the reading instruction course and differs very little from the recommended way to read to a dog (R.E.A.D.® FAQ, https://therapyanimals.org/read-faq/).Consequently, both the reading buddy and the dog handler focused on continuity in a private reading session where the reading buddy helped to contextualize the interaction with the dog's reading session.This within-site strategy was used to understand how a specific and real-life culture functions.This paper reports on the role of the dog as a non-judgmental listener, and in this context reading to the buddy only represents a context for understanding the rituals explaining the dog's role.Consequently, the paper does not report on the role of the reading buddy or the differences observed between him and the dog.
After 14 days and four reading sessions with the reading buddy, an intervening dimension, "the equipage," was introduced.The equipage was Bitzer and his handler (Jensen & Østby, 2018).After reading individually to the equipage in a similar small, private, and identically equipped room nearby, the child read to the reading buddy again and then finally once more to the equipage.
The research design also included informal interviews and data collected from written comments on an interactive website.Two pupils volunteered to be interviewed.The interviews were conducted after the reading session, with questions aimed at getting the two children, a boy and a girl, to reflect on their immediate experiences of the reading session.The two interviews used open questions about Bitzer as a reading dog.The remaining children and their experiences were addressed in a plenary classroom conversation where the same questions were posed.The interviewed pupils and those participating in the plenary session found reading to the dog enjoyable.
On the website, 29 children described their feelings toward Bitzer in a local TV segment featuring children's news.The interactive feed lasted over two months and it generated 30 comments.The children who participated are not necessarily representative of those who watched the interactive feed: they comprise those who actively chose to comment.Four of the comments referred to having read to Bitzer before as he has been a reading dog in this part of the country for several years.Other comments referred to different reading dogs in different areas.Typical comments were: OMG!!You are so lucky to have him [the dog] in the classroom:O We don't have that; "C" and "I" would also love to read to Bitzer!

Analysis
The videos of the reading sessions and the interviews and the written comments on the interactive website were coded directly in the MAXQDA software program.The analytical process started by reading the observation notes from the video material, the children's interviews, and the data obtained from the interactive website.One of the researchers had watched all the video material beforehand and selected and presented typical reading sessions, mainly from reading to the dog, but also sessions with the reading buddy.The function of the reading buddy was to prepare the pupils for reading to the dog in a similar way.In the first inductive phase carried out by the two researchers together, it was discovered that the interactions were especially interesting when it came to understanding the role of the dog.The interactions were characterized by acts that were explainable according to the three anthrozoological concepts: (1) animals as similar-yet-different others.(2) biophilia (3) gaze-and touch-mediated bonding.
After reviewing the video material several times and paying special attention to the role of the dog, we discovered that interactions explainable according to the anthrozoological concepts differed across the course of the sessions.The sessions followed a pattern of three sequences that formed a continual ritual in the reading session: (1) the opening sequence displaying expressive actions with mutual greeting, petting, and joy; (2) the reading sequence consisting of different forms of physical contact led by the child while reading; and (3) the concluding sequence ending when the dog handler stopped the reading and proposed a high five between child and dog.To grasp this ritualized sequencing, we created a typical narrative of a session reading to a dog that was informed by these categories and concepts.Narrative analysis is suited to studying coherence in material or in a sequence of events (Polkinghorne, 2002).The narrative approach to the analysis, chosen because of the sequential nature of the data, functions as a tool for presenting a typical reading session within the article format.In the results section below, we describe this typical session using the video data collected on the 14 children who read to the dog and the data from the interviews and the website.

Ethical Considerations
The project satisfies the ethical research standards for ensuring anonymity and participant consent.This means acquiring signed consent from each of the children, their parents, the teacher responsible for the class, the dog handler, and the reading buddy.The dog's name has also been anonymized by using the fictional name Bitzer.In a few cases, a child signaled a certain degree of skepticism at having the dog sitting so close on the sofa, prompting the dog handler to move him further away from the child.This indicates that the dog's presence is the presence of a real animal.The dog handler's actions here illustrate the precautions taken by the school as some children were not used to dogs.If our sample had had children who feared dogs or had allergies to them, they would not have read to Bitzer.Bitzer's and the children's welfare were monitored carefully.Throughout the seven-month study, Bitzer's stress and welfare were constantly controlled by the dog handler, who also was his owner.The dog handler also made sure that Bitzer had breaks after each session and regulated the length of his working hours to avoid overexertion.When the anxiety and stress levels of the dog were measured, they were normal (Simonsen, 2020).The Norwegian Centre for Research Data approved the project on January 31, 2017, and reapproved it on April 28, 2021 (reference number 52616).

Results
The following research narrative represents a typical reading session across 14 children and 112 sessions.The sessions occurred in a small room with a chair and a sofa in the school's common area which serves as a library.The entire scene was captured on a camera placed across from the sofa.
The opening sequence starts with the child cautiously entering the room to be greeted by the dog Bitzer.He is on a slack leash, wagging his tail as he gently approaches the child.Simultaneously, there is an amiable exchange of hellos between the dog handler and the child while the child bends down a little to establish eye contact and pet the dog's head.The child and the dog both await the dog handler's consent before the child takes a seat on the sofa."Do you want Bitzer to be on the sofa or the floor?" the dog handler asks."On the sofa," the child typically responds.
When the child has taken a seat on the sofa, the dog climbs up and settles into a resting position on the sofa, with his head raised and front paws barely touching the child, who is given a reading book opened at the right page.This signals the reading sequence's start, only one to two minutes after the opening sequence.Throughout this sequence, the dog maintains his position on the sofa, quickly resting his head on his paws.Soon the dog shifts to sleeping on his side with his head close to and in touch with the child.This allows the child to pet the dog's head while reading the book.The dog handler sits on a chair with the dog in between him and the child, assisting the child in holding the book with one hand if he or she chooses to pet the dog while reading.The child is rarely interrupted during the reading.Occasionally the dog handler helps with spelling, pronunciation, and explaining difficult words and meanings.
After reading to the dog for approximately ten minutes, the reading session's concluding sequence is initiated by the dog handler, suggesting that it is time for a break.The child and the dog stay on the sofa, and a conversation about the dog typically starts while the child is still petting him."Do you want to give Bitzer a high five?" the dog handler asks."Yes!" the child typically responds.Without any further instruction, Bitzer sits, and the child and dog simultaneously raise one hand and one front leg, and the flat of the hand and the paw do a high five.Then the child says "goodbye Bitzer!" and leaves the small room and walks out into the common area.
The child entering the situation cautiously in the opening sequence actualizes the view of human-animal interaction as an encounter with different-yet-similar other beings (Myers & Saunders, 2002).From the moment the child enters the room, his or her attention is turned toward the dog, not the dog handler.This focus of the engagement between the two, leaving the dog handler somewhat in the background, sets the mood for this context.The caution seems to express full attention and interest, pointing to the importance of the dog's presence.The deliberate lack of attention on the instruction and its aims indicates an invisible pedagogy (Bernstein, 2000).
The welcome is a warm and expressive one: the dog approaches the child wagging his tail.When the child then bends down toward Bitzer, seeks eye contact with him, and pets his head, the two connect in mutual gaze-and touch-mediated bonding (Nagasawa et al., 2015).However, the social situation is still cautious as the dog handler asks if the child wants the dog to sit on the floor or the sofa.The dog handler's question, as opposed to giving an instruction, here signals several aspects of the situation, such as child-centeredness and politeness.These are signs of an expressive and invisible pedagogy, as opposed to written rules and visible instruction.However, when we consider that this is a social relation with an animal, it is also possible that the question is motivated by an awareness that some children might fear the dog.Hence, the dog's characteristics of being a real-life animal are recognized.Still, the child typically confirms the wish to have the dog sitting on the sofa, demonstrating a biophilic desire to connect with him (Fromm, 1964;Wilson, 1986).
Next, the dog settles on the sofa with his paws barely touching the child.When the child starts to read, the dog puts his head on his paws.The dog's behavior is interesting from an anthrozoological pedagogical perspective.It is not clear whether the dog or the child initiates the petting that follows.Does the child start by petting the dog's head?Or does the dog invite the child by putting his head close to and at the height of the child's hand?Whatever the case, this connection or bonding makes sense to both as the child responds by accepting the invitation (Nagasawa et al., 2015).The ambivalent initiative to the interaction on the sofa indicates that in this case the animal has its own agency.This underlines an invisible pedagogy owing to the animal's apparent lack of awareness of instructional intentions (Bernstein, 2000).
Additionally, the interaction on the sofa reveals a wordless connection, leaving the level of proximity up to the child.Human-animal interaction as a non-lingual form of communication was a topic in the interviews with the children in the study.One of the two children interviewed after the reading session expressed that this was a different experience.The passage below from the interview exemplifies this: Interviewer: Why is reading to Bitzer different than reading to the reading buddy?Child A: Because he's a dog, an animal.
Interviewer: And why is that different?Child A: Because he can't talk (…) and he can't correct me.
The experience of reading to a being that does not speak seems to be important in the situation.The dog is silent and calm, even occasionally sleeps.This calm presence might rub off on the children when they perform.
In the interviews, the children's descriptions of reading to the dog further illustrate that they also credit the dog with having abilities similar to humans (Tam et al., 2013): Interviewer: Do you like all dogs, or do you like Bitzer in a particular way?Child B: In a particular way.
Interviewer: Why? Child B: Because he listens, and he's a very, very calm dog.
As the extracts from the interviews illustrate, the children's images of Bitzer arise when they compare him to human beings, and in contrast, with his strong points enhanced: his silence, calmness, and his being an animal, a similar-yet-different other (Myers & Saunders, 2002).The ritually repeating reading instruction invisibly includes an attribution of human characteristics to Bitzer.The ritual also affords confidence, trust, and authenticity to the reading and makes the instructional part of the pedagogy invisible (Bernstein, 2000).Children's love and care for animals are also supported through the written statements on the interactive website.Here all the children's comments, except one (stating "no"), are enthusiastic and expressive, such as: I would have loved to read for Bitzer.

I love dogs!
He's so cute, I love reading for animals.
The comments demonstrate a biophilic desire: they want to connect with the dog (Fromm, 1964;Wilson, 1986).They also underline the stress-reducing effect of Bitzer in a situation where they are aware of the instructional intention behind the sessions.They read to animals in almost the same way as they read to humans in a setting where expectations are invisible as they are embedded in a game of pretending that Bitzer is an attentive listener (Tam et al., 2013).Thus, the anthropomorphizing effects assign Bitzer traits of a pedagogical agent, an agent that is present to enhance reading skills.
When the reading session ends, the child continues to pet the dog and strikes up a conversation about him.A typical aspect in the data is that the children are curious and want to know more about him.The session's ending also reinforces its ritual element as all the children want to do a high five with Bitzer after being asked.The children's responses to the question are ones of joy and anticipation (Wilson, 1986).The high five introduces the expressive and invisible element of humor in the social situation: The high five, a form of greeting from youth culture (introduced in American basketball in the 1970s), signals that one is "cool."The absurdity in the act lies in the fact that this is an animal doing a very human thing (Tam et al., 2013).When high-fiving, the coordination of the child's and the dog's bodies is a signal of bonding across species (Nagasawa et al., 2015); the reservation being, of course, that this is a specially trained dog that has been subject to extensive enculturation and "humanization." This section of the paper has demonstrated how the relations between pupils and a dog in this institutional context can be interpreted as an invisible pedagogy by expressively anthropomorphizing the animal; the dog is attributed to human characteristics, but at the same time, the real-life animal is acknowledged.The implications of this invisible pedagogy of reading to a dog, from the perspective of anthrozoology, will be discussed.

Discussion
As mentioned in the introduction, studies within the field of anthrozoology have claimed that getting pupils to read to a dog as part of school instruction has the advantage of reducing stress and enhancing concentration because the dog is a non-judgmental listener (Gee et al., 2015;Hall et al., 2016;Kirnan et al., 2016;le Roux et al., 2014;Uccheddu et al., 2019).Based on the results from this paper, we argue that the ritual of an invisible pedagogy can contribute to understanding how and why the interaction of reading to a dog works in this way.
The joy of reading to Bitzer lies within his hybrid role: he is, on the one hand, an active negotiating agent whom they respect, bond with, and care for as an animal.We have shown examples of this through the greetings in the opening sequence, where they sit on the sofa during the reading sequence, and through the conversations and interactions in the concluding sequence.On the other hand, Bitzer is read to in school.He is assigned human characteristics (Tam et al., 2013) and has traits of a pedagogical agent.This gives him a unique educational role in the school setting.His role differs from reading to an adult reading buddy (a pensioner in our case) as he is unaware of the instructional intention.His role is also different from reading to a toy (for example, a teddy bear) because he is an active living agent.The dog is assigned the role of an unaware pedagogical agent, reducing stress without obscuring the instructional intention.
The awareness of the instructional intention from the children's point of view is established by their enculturation into the expectations of the schooling institution from day one (Willbergh, 2011), and the contextualization of the dog sessions by first reading for a reading buddy (Jensen & Østby, 2018).The pretend game of "reading to Bitzer" would not have worked if the children had not been aware of the original ritual.This original ritual, reading to a buddy to train reading skills, is a necessary premise for accepting the pretend game with Bitzer.Games of pretense are possibly familiar and enjoyable for children as there are similarities to children's play (Goldman, 1998); this could be a topic for further research in anthrozoology.Consequently, our research also contributes to understanding the importance of young pupils' subjective experience of joy when reading to a dog.
The concept of the Anthropocene refers to our current geological epoch and the negative impact humanity has on the globe (Ellis, 2018).Furthermore, the term addresses the social construction of a human-centered worldview (Kowalsky, 2021) and culture, where human beings as a privileged category dominate nature and animals.A topic for further research suggested by this study could be to study animals as part of other anthropomorphizing games of pretense, for the sake of exploring the human-animal relationship in the Anthropocene (Ellis, 2018).Ritualized games of pretense involving animals could further contribute to the rising research field of pedagogy in the Anthropocene (Krogh et al., 2022;Paulsen et al., 2022).
Practical educational applications of this study could be putting the dog as an unaware pedagogical agent to work with groups of children or children with special needs.Children with dyslexia, reading difficulties, or anxiety could possibly benefit from reading to a dog that reduces stress without obscuring the instructional intention.

Limitations
The limitations of this study are that what we have contributed is the result of the chosen research question, the focus on the dog's role and the theoretical perspectives of anthrozoology, pedagogical rituals, and role-play.Other qualitative researchers applying different theoretical concepts would have shed light on other aspects of the children's reading to Bitzer (Yin, 2014).

Conclusion
We conclude that when reading to a dog in a school setting, the instructional intention is reinterpreted as a game of pretense that is potentially enjoyable for the pupils and reduces stress.Consequently, this paper's contribution to anthrozoology is that pupils' meaningful experience of reading to a dog in a school is not simply the result of the instrumental function of the dog reducing stress, but also of an animal being an unaware pedagogical agent.Equally important is that the entire situation is permeated by its context-specificity: the educational culture uses rituals as expressive means to institutionalize and conduct this practice.