Neil Mercer

Mercer has emphasised the use of language to "inter-think" and build "common knowledge" – shared understandings and perspectives to work together, particularly in classrooms.

[6] From Common Knowledge[6] onwards his work has been explicitly Vygotskian in nature, fitting into a wider sociocultural and dialogic learning focus in education.

[12] Research exploring this typology and its third component – cumulative talk, in which ideas are shared but not built upon or critically analysed – has found "evidence of the link between the development of children's communication skills and improvements in their critical thinking.

",[13] leading to the suggestion that there should be more focus on these skills in classrooms, and commensurately teacher education programs,[14][15] including in the context of computer use.

[21] Sociocultural discourse analysis focuses on what language is used to do, and in Mercer's work, how it is used to share meaning, create common knowledge,[6] and interthink.