CHAPTER 16
Discourse in Science Classrooms
Educational events occur through communication. Science learning can be conceptualized as students coming to know how to use specialized language, given the constraints of particular social configurations and cultural practices. Across different theoretical traditions, from the sociology and rhetoric of science to studies of classroom interaction, the importance of spoken and written discourse in the production and learning of disciplinary knowledge is becoming increasingly recognized as a salient research focus. The study of discourse, broadly defined, allows researchers to examine what counts as science in given contexts, how science is interactionally accomplished, who participates in the construction of science, and how situated definitions of science imply epistemological orientations. In this chapter, I provide a conceptual overview of the field of discourse studies in science education. My aim is not to present a comprehensive review of all studies, but rather to focus on some of the theoretical approaches, methodological orientations, and substantive findings. Through this selected review, I argue that a discourse analytic perspective provides insight into how the events that make up science education are constructed through language and social processes. The importance of viewing education through this lens of language and social processes is justified by three primary observations. First, teaching and learning occur through processes constructed through discourse and interaction. An empirical focus on the ways language contributes to learning is essential for developing theories of practice for science education. Second, student access to science is accomplished through engagement in the social and symbolic worlds comprising the knowledge and practices of specialized communities. Issues of understanding, appropriating, affiliating, and developing identities for participation in the knowledge and practices of the sciences can be understood through the study of discourse processes. Third, disciplinary knowledge is constructed, framed, portrayed, communicated, and assessed through language, and thus understanding the epistemological base of science and inquiry requires attention to the uses of language. I conclude this review with implications about how the current body of knowledge suggests future directions for research in discourse processes in science education settings.
Discourse is typically defined as language in use, or a stretch of language larger than a sentence or clause (Cameron, 2001; Jaworski & Coupland, 1999). This definition, while potentially recognizing the need to examine form and function in discourse studies, may not make obvious the relationship of language use to social knowledge, practice, power, and identity (Fairclough, 1995). Therefore, the study of discourse processes in science education should properly include a definition of discourse as using language in social contexts and, as Gee (2001a) argued, connected to social practices, “ways of being in the world … forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (p. 526). For the purposes of this review, I shall leave the definition of discourse broad and consider a range of studies that encompass the many epistemological, ideological, and social dimensions of language use. To maintain focus, I shall consider primarily discourse studies set in educational settings. Furthermore, although the majority of empirical studies related to science education use language, I shall limit my focus to those studies that specifically examine how the form, function, and/or interactional aspects of language are used in an explicit manner. Generally, this means that studies that self-identify as explicitly related to language, literacy, and discourse are more likely to be included in the review.
Studies of classroom discourse in science education have been informed by multiple theoretical traditions and apply multiple methodological orientations. Typically there is a strong tie between the theoretical positions of the researchers and the application and interpretation of a particular research approach. Each theoretical position and manifestation in research entails a certain expressive potential (Strike, 1974), offering a particular set of constructs that allows researchers to speak about certain dimensions of discourse. Furthermore, although theories of discourse may have methodological implications, there is typically flexibility within traditions as to how particular studies are conducted. In this chapter, I make reference to some clearly distinguished theory-method relationships through a review of substantive studies of classroom discourse, rather than describe a set of research methodologies for analyzing classroom discourse separate from the substantial issues of individual studies. Much of the research in science education concerned with discourse processes shows a family resemblance to one or more of a relatively limited number of theoretical traditions, including social semiotics (e.g., Halliday & Martin, 1993; Lemke, 1998), sociolinguistics (e.g., Bleicher, 1994; Carlsen, 1991a), ethnomethodology (e.g., Lynch & Macbeth, 1998; Macbeth, 2000), cognitive science and psycholinguistics (e.g., Yore, Bisanz, & Hand, 2003), rhetoric and writing (e.g., Bazerman, 1988; Keys, 1999a), and critical discourse analysis (e.g., Hughes, 2001; Moje, 1997).
This review of discourse in science classrooms is intended to provide illustrative examples of the range of perspectives and issues. I offer a view of only a limited number of the many studies that could plausibly count as studies of discourse in science classrooms. As many of the authors reviewed have noted, studies of teacher lectures, for example, are not independent of the reading and writing activities in the classroom (e.g., Lemke, 2000; Moje, Collazo, Carrillo, & Marx, 2001; Rivard & Straw, 2000). Student participation in a teacher-directed classroom typically involves attempting to make sense (or not in some cases) of a range of spoken and written texts, signs and symbols, and physical objects, all within a continually constructed set of norms and expectations, rights and obligations, and roles and relationships (Gee, 1999; Green, 1983). Similarly, learning to write science/writing to learn science typically involves participation in a range of spoken discourse practices that help make sense of the written texts contributing to the writing goal, as well as any number of participation structures (small group, whole class), cultural expectations, ways of being a student, and so forth (e.g., Kelly, Chen, & Prothero, 2000; Keys, 2000; Rivard & Straw, 2000). Indeed, any issue related to lectures, discussions, writing, or reading in science classrooms typically includes, to some degree, aspects of each of these three categories. For the purposes of this review, I have organized the chapter by studies of spoken discourse, including the topics of classroom teaching, small-group interaction, conceptual change, argumentation, and equity, and studies of written discourse, including the topics of reading and writing science. The research literature will show that there is not a clear demarcation in teacher and student discourse, nor in written and spoken discourse in all instances. Many studies could have been grouped differently.
STUDIES OF CLASSROOM SPOKEN DISCOURSE
Discourse Studies of Classroom Teaching
A landmark for discourse studies in science education is Lemke's (1990) Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Lemke applied a social semiotic perspective to classroom discourse in a set of studies of secondary science classrooms. Lemke's work began with the premise that science lessons are social activities constructed through human action. These human actions occur with the contingencies of the moment and are generally constrained by activity structures and norms for interaction. Lemke's analysis identified both thematic and organizational patterns in science dialogues in classrooms. The thematic patterns represented the particular semantic relationships comprising the scientific knowledge discussed. This was often in the form of propositional knowledge, controlled by the teacher, with little opportunity for students to take initiatives within the conversations. The examples of classroom discourse demonstrate how these acceptable ways of talking science are tightly controlled through the enforcement of strict uses of language specific to thematic content as interpreted by the classroom teacher. The organization of the discourse often fell into a common pattern of question-answer-response, referred to by Lemke as the triadic dialogue.1 This triadic dialogue pattern centers control of the direction and thematic content of the lesson on the teacher. Through the analysis of the organizational and thematic patterns and their relationship, Lemke put forth his central thesis that learning science is learning how to talk science—that is, observing, describing, comparing, classifying, discussing, questioning, challenging, generalizing, and reporting, among other ways of talking science (p. 1). Lemke explained, “students have to learn to combine the meanings of different terms according to accepted ways of talking science” (p. 12, emphasis in original).
Lemke (1990) argued that over time the combined effect of strict adherence to patterned language use and tight control of the nature and types of classroom conversation led to a particular ideological positioning of science. The teachers’ pedagogical goal of transmitting the propositional content of the products of scientific communities left little room for justification, discussion, and re-examination of science. Students were offered little opportunity to “talk science” and practice making the language of science their own. Furthermore, the disciplinary knowledge was positioned as unassailable, difficult to learn, and reserved for a cognitive elite. Lemke's examination of the discourse processes in science classrooms posed troubling problems for educators. The portrayal of science was ideological in the sense that only one dimension of science (strict use of language in its final form) was made available to students—views of a more social and less secure science were omitted. Consequently, the students may have lost interest in science because of the ways in which science was narrowly framed in the classrooms.
Whereas Lemke (1990) studied ways that teachers talked science, Moje's (1995, 1997) research considered more explicitly how a teacher talked about science. By applying a critical discourse analysis framework 2 (Fairclough, 1995), Moje (1995) identified how uses of particular discourse processes (e.g., first person plural, precision in language use, demarcating science from other disciplines) positioned science and science teachers as authorities. In one particular episode described by Moje (1997), a student was requested to repeat his imprecise response three consecutive times. This example illustrated how a teacher's view of the precision required of scientific knowledge was partially responsible for a situation where the power relationships were manifested in the conversation. Rather than viewing scientific practices as a resource for understanding the social practices of a community, the discourse practices were used as a means to enforce the putative exactness and precision of scientists. In these studies, a common theme emerged regarding choices of discourse in science classrooms: The choices of discourse influenced the views of science made available to students. The framing of the disciplines of science emerged similarly in studies of teacher questions, where variables such as teacher knowledge and use of authority became pertinent (Carlsen, 1991a; Russell, 1983).
Much like the social semiotic perspective of Lemke, Carlsen (1991a, 1991b, 1992) applied sociolinguistics to consider the multiple functions of classroom conversations. Carlsen examined the role of teacher subject matter knowledge as a variable in the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features of classroom discourse. Carlsen found that teachers’ subject matter knowledge of the scientific discipline being taught influenced the extent to which they opened up classroom conversations to student participation, the range and type of questions posed to students, and their willingness to diverge from specific, defined curriculum goals. For example, teachers’ questions to students served the immediate function of eliciting a student response to a scientific topic, as well as other functions, such as maintaining control of the students and the range of discussion topics (Carlsen, 1992, 1997). Thus, questions served multiple purposes for science teachers; they had both a locutionary (literal meaning) and an illocutionary (functional meaning) force in the conversation. Carlsen's analysis of teacher questioning provided a means of examining how teacher subject matter knowledge (measured independently) influenced the science of the classroom discourse. One interesting finding of these studies was that when teachers taught less familiar subject matter they tended to ask more questions. However, rather than opening up the conversation, these questions tended to be of a lower cognitive level and were fact oriented. Thus, students were put on the defensive by the teachers’ questions.
Carlsen's studies of teacher subject matter knowledge and its relationship to choices discourse expanded some earlier findings by Russell. Russell (1983) applied argumentation analysis to the study of teacher questions and found that questioning served to orient the conversation to an unjustified authority of science, rather than to an authority merited by reasons. The studies by Carlsen and Russell corroborate Lemke and Moje's views about the ideological views of science promulgated in schools. Similarly, Cross (1997) identified teachers’ support of mythological accounts of science—accounts that fail to consider the problematic nature of science, the influence of funding on science, the role of personal and cultural values, and so forth. Cross attributed the uniformity of teachers’ views across cultures to the science socialization processes experienced by teachers and to the professional development of science teachers.
Whereas some studies identified limits to the ways that science was made available to students, other studies showed how access to scientific knowledge and practices occurs through specific, purposeful use of language. For example, rather than finding that questions were often used to control the substance of the classroom conversation (Carlsen, 1991b; Lemke, 1990; Russell, 1983), van Zee and Minstrell (1997) provided a case study of an exemplary physics teacher (Minstrell) who used questions to engage students with scientific knowledge. In this study, the teacher used a questioning method called a reflective toss. Unlike the triadic dialogue controlled by the teacher, the reflective toss invited students into the conversation by building on an initial student statement. A three-part dialogic structure consisting of student statement, teacher question, and student elaboration opened up the classroom conversations to serve three emergent goals. The reflective toss served to engage students in a proposed method offered by a student, to begin a refinement process of a previously discussed method, and to evaluate an alternative method. Together these emergent goals served to create discourse events constructed to allow and encourage student participation in the cognitive processes of the lesson.
In another example of teachers using discourse processes to support student learning, Roth's (1996) study of an open-inquiry learning environment considered how teacher-questioning practices were mediated by the situational social context. In this case, the teacher used questioning to scaffold student knowledge through an engineering design unit in a grade 4/5 classroom. Unlike situations where teachers know a preconceived answer to their questions, the teacher in this study generally did not know the requested information, believed the students could provide an appropriate response, was interested in the students’ point of view, and believed the students would provide an answer. A typology of the content of the teacher's questions demonstrated a range of knowledge embedded in the conversations generated from these questions. Knowledge of the natural world, design practice, and testing of the designs were central to the classroom discourse. The typology was rounded out by questions relating to students’ final products and questions about the sources of knowledge used and derived from the design experience. The teacher questioning thus served to increase student competence in the requisite engineering knowledge and offered opportunities for students to appropriate the questioning practices.
Gallas's (1995) study of the “science talks” in her first- and second-grade classroom evinced the importance of paying attention to students’ ideas and questions in classroom discourse. In her classroom, science was the product of a joint construction of students and the teacher(s) incorporating a child-centered, hands-on approach, emanating from children's questions. The description of these experiences in Talking Their Way into Science: Hearing Children's Questions and Theories, Responding with Curricula represents an important shift from engaging students in science through questioning to learning to hear children's questions as a teaching strategy. This shift represents a break in the typical power asymmetries found in science classroom discourse. By developing the norms for discourse of this sort, the classrooms became a community of inquirers “whose interests, questions, and theories emerge from the inside-out, rather than the outside in” (Gallas, p. 101). Emergent curricula were also present in studies of an experienced third- and fourth-grade teacher by Crawford, Kelly, and Brown (2000). In this and a related study (Kelly, Brown, & Crawford, 2000), children's discourse was encouraged through a series of teaching practices that situated the teacher as a co-investigator. By developing a community that valued listening and following through on students’ suggestions for next moves in science investigations, the teacher created multiple opportunities for her students to engage in scientific practices and to talk through ideas as a class. Part of the students’ discursive practice included generating questions for a participating scientist. In this and other examples, the research focus has shifted from teacher questioning of students to ways in which students learn to pose questions in science contexts (Gallas, 1995; van Zee, 2000).
As illustrated by the previous examples, studies of the discourse processes of science teaching offer a range of views of the inner workings of classroom life. Science can be seen as constructed through discourse processes in these empirical studies. Nevertheless, the ways that science is framed through discourse make available to students a wide range of opportunities to learn specific scientific knowledge and practices. Similarly, although the views of science made available in terms of the conceptual information, the types of permissible discourse structures, and the ways of engaging in the discourse of science show considerable diversity, many of the studies found that limited participation of students in talking science can present an ideological view of science as particularly narrow and authoritarian.
Knowledge, Discourse, and Conceptual Change
Gallas's studies speak to the issue of translating from the everyday spoken language of students to the canonical discourse patterns typically found in formalized scientific discourse. Discourse-oriented research in science education has provided examples of how to bridge from students’ initial knowledge state (i.e., ways of talking about the natural world) to more robust, theoretical language characteristic of professional scientific discourse, as well as examples of how assumptions about language render the link between knowledge and discourse tenuous. For example, Dagher's (1995) study of analogies, conceived broadly to include metaphors, models, and similes, in teacher discourse in seventh- and eighth-grade science classrooms, identified different ways that teachers bridge from a familiar domain for the student learners (source) to unfamiliar domains (target). Five types of analogies were used by the teachers: compound, narrative, procedural, peripheral, and simple. Interestingly, these types of analogies were used in idiosyncratic ways, and Dagher viewed this diversity of forms of expression as a positive experience for learners. This study also cautioned researchers by suggesting differences in how students viewed analogies, as compared with researchers and teachers.
The interdependence of language use and knowledge is the subject of other discourse-orientated studies in science education. Continuing with the theme of bridging across knowledge domains, Dagher (1994) raises questions about the use of analogies and the meaning of conceptual change for educational research. She reviewed studies of analogy use from a conceptual change perspective and identified different meanings of conceptual change (e.g., replacing students’ initial concepts, adding to existing knowledge, providing alternatives to existing concepts). Dagher (1994) suggested that research on uses of analogies extend beyond developing students’ knowledge of target concepts and consider the ways that analogies can enhance “creativity, aesthetic appreciation, and positive attitudes” (p. 610). Similarly, Klaassen and Lijnse (1996) caution about the interpretation of classroom discourse from a purely cognitive point of view focused on student misconceptions or alternative conceptions. In this study, an exchange between a teacher and his students is interpreted from three points of view (in terms of teacher analysis, misconceptions, and alternative conceptions) that the authors view as erroneous. They proposed instead to consider the ways in which a dissenting student and her teacher mis-communicate. In the example provided, the two interlocutors in question agreed about the similarities and dissimilarities of a given situation (book-on-the-table condition) but failed to reach agreement about how to characterize the situation in terms of force acting in the relevant bodies. Klaassen and Lijnse argued that the teacher and student did not assign the same meaning to the expression “to exert a force” (p. 129), and, thus, the problem of interpretation revolves around finding common ground that forms the basis for understanding.
The relationship of conceptual change to discourse processes was also examined by Macbeth (2000), who studied the “apparatus” of conceptual change for Karen, a student participant in the Private Universe Project. As is typical of ethnomethodology, 3 Macbeth examines in great detail the practical actions and conversational sequences between Karen and a research interviewer as they participate in a discussion about light. Central to understanding the apparatus of the students’ “conceptual change” is the research setting with an ensemble of technologies. This close examination called into question previous assumptions about students’ native conceptions and the ways in which these conceptions change through experience. Macbeth demonstrated how Karen, by finding things she could “do in the dark,” showed how “perceptual ‘facts’ are themselves attached to local orders of activity” (p. 253). Macbeth concluded by identifying how the worlds of scientific and ordinary action are continuous and permeable, rather than separate, as sometimes assumed. In another study with an ethnomethodological orientation, Lynch and Macbeth (1998) investigated how a teacher demonstrated science to her third-grade students. In this case, the teacher was shown to position and discipline students as “witnesses” to scientific phenomena through ways of setting occasional confrontations between the students’ ways of seeing and the aimed-for scientific account. This study demonstrated how the mundane discursive tasks of classroom life serve to accomplish science education as situated practice.
Research topics such as teacher framing of disciplinary knowledge, uses of language to control the subject matter, the importance of language for student sense making, and the problematic nature of conceptual change all speak to the intertwined issues of the nature of knowledge and access to knowledge for student learners. These studies identify the importance of discourse processes for understanding how science is interactionally accomplished, how access to the subject matter knowledge occurs through language, and how the disciplines of science are interpreted through ways of speaking about them. Therefore, emerging from the initial studies of science discourse in classrooms are studies centrally concerned with equity, access, and epistemology in education settings. Before synthesizing this literature and its implications for future research directions, I review studies of student (and teacher) discourse in small-group settings.
Student Small-Group Discourse
Whereas the language functions examined in teacher-directed discourse tend to center primarily on the communication of propositional information, and secondarily on the control of social situations, studies of student small-group discourse examine the interrelationship of propositional, social, and expressive functions of language (Cazden, 2001). For example, Anderson, Holland, and Palinscar (1997) studied the interwoven nature of canonical scientific discourse and the social relationships and positioning among students working on an investigation in a small group. In this example, the researchers focused on the negotiated nature of interpersonal relationships, scientific activities, and task requirements for a student, Juan, and his group of classmates. This group of five sixth-grade students observed phase changes in a “barbell apparatus” and was given the task of explaining their observations through the use of a student-designed poster and molecular models. A key finding from the study was that teachers need to develop a sense of communal activity among the students. Opportunities to engage in the scientific discourse were mediated by diverse discursive processes related to negotiation of the task. Thus, understanding access to science required an analysis of the canonical forms of science discourse in the student talk, but also required attention to the students’ personal identities and ways of navigating interpersonal relationships.
The simultaneous construction of propositional, social, and expressive functions of language was further specified in a number of studies involving student small-group discourse in inquiry-oriented contexts. Hogan's (1999) study considered the sociocognitive roles taken by eighth-grade students through their science group discourse while engaged in a long-term collaborative task related to the nature of matter. This study made explicit connections among the interpersonal and the more content-oriented aspects of scientific discourse, noting how demands on students included both ways of interacting and building consensus. In this case, the demands for interactivity and consensus building proved challenging for the students and may have stood in the way of accomplishing the intellectual task. Similarly, the issues of interpersonal relationships and differential (perceived) status among students engaged in group work were central to two studies by Bianchini (1997, 1999). These two studies drew from sociological theory of expectation states and were designed to create student group work conditions aimed at eliminating disparities of access in linguistically, ethnically, and academically diverse classrooms. Through analysis of students’ assessment of peer status, records of group work task behavior, rate of science discourse, and conceptual tests, Bianchini (1997) identified how some students were systematically denied access to materials and participation despite a curriculum and instructional strategy designed to ameliorate such problems. Similarly, Bianchini (1999) found that students of low status as determined by their peers (often students from groups that have historically under-achieved in science, including females, Latinos, and African Americans) participated less in cooperative work groups and learned less during the units. Thus, in these studies (Anderson et al., 1997; Hogan, 1999; Bianchini, 1997) and others of student group work (e.g., Hogan, Nastasi, & Pressley, 1999; Kelly, Crawford, & Green, 2001), negotiation of the multiple social and expressive functions such as student roles, individual and collective responsibilities, the nature of the academic task, and the differential status among students were thoroughly tied to the access students had to scientific discourse and, thus, to opportunities to construct institutionally sanctioned knowledge.
Social dimensions of small-group discourse include not only ways of negotiating the interpersonal relationships entailed in group membership, but also the nature of the scientific knowledge in question. The development of explanations that count as science for a given audience is an interactional accomplishment, partially constructed by the nature of the intellectual resources, the status of the knowledge in question, the participant structures, and the goals and purposes of the activity. Herrenkohl and Guerra (1998) designed two interventions related to student roles (groups working with intellectual and audience roles, and others with just intellectual roles) to promote student engagement in the discourse practices of understanding classroom procedures, monitoring comprehension, challenging others’ perspectives and claims, and coordinating theories with evidence. Analysis of the speech patterns across the three phases of the inquiry activity (introduction, small-group work, reporting sessions) revealed that students assigned audience roles during spoken reporting sessions initiated more engagement episodes and challenges than students without such role assignment. Furthermore, the teacher discourse was a major mediator of the types of student discourse (e.g., teacher attention to classroom procedures versus scientific discourse practices such as coordinating theories with evidence) and was influenced by the changes in student role taking. Other studies, such as those focused on developing student inquiry, also identify the pivotal role played by teachers’ discourse practices in framing students’ activity, focusing student talk on the substantial aspects of science, and allowing space for student-generated discussions (Krajcik et al., 1998; van Zee, 2000)
Research on small-group interaction poses theoretical and methodological challenges for science education. Besides the technical difficulties of recording audibly clear conversations of student talk in busy classroom settings, methodological challenges include choices related to the focus on the discourse analysis (Lemke, 1998) and identification of the relevant semiotic field, given the chosen theoretical orientation and investigative focus. For example, Roth, McGinn, Woszczyna, and Boutonné (1999) drew from multiple data sources recorded in a grade 6–7 classroom to make the argument for the importance of the discursive practices within a community and how a community of practice comes to construct those intellectual resources deemed relevant to the tasks at hand. In this case, Roth et al. (1999) identified how knowing and learning about simple machines was distributed across people, artifacts, social configurations, and physical arrangements. The opportunities for students to participate in the community involved the use of material and symbolic practices, including constructions, measurements, design, and spoken discourse. Thus, this study, like many that consider small-group interaction, recognized the embedded nature of discourse processes and the methodological importance of understanding the community practices.
Researchers concerned with the semiotic field in small-group interaction need to consider discourse broadly, as many studies of small-group work examine student discourse while engaged in hands-on or other investigations with the material world. Two studies make it clear that the multiple resources constructed in time and space in laboratory settings need to be accounted for in research transcripts of student discourse. Roth (1999) and Kelly et al. (2001) identified how hands, arms, eyes, and bodies contributed to the cognition and learning by the participating students and observing researchers. For example, Kelly et al. (2001) identified how eye gaze, bodily orientation and movement, and gestures (such as pointing and motioning) contributed to the semiotic field made available for interpretation of physical motion and graphical representation as students made sense of their own motion and that of other objects in a data acquisition microcomputer-based laboratory. This study identified how community practices provided a framework for conversations, but also how the particular microhistories of small-group interaction served to exclude certain proposed scientific explanations, leading to dissent within small groups.
Whereas laboratory experience in classroom settings has not always led to the cognitive and epistemic goals set forth by educators (DeBoer, 1991; Fairbrother, Hackling, & Cowan, 1997; Meyer & Carlisle, 1996), placing students in apprenticeships in science laboratories offers an alternative set of opportunities. For example, Bleicher (1994, 1996) took a sociolinguistic perspective to examine the cultural practices of scientific research groups with student apprentice participants. Bleicher considered the social and cultural characteristics of everyday laboratory work and how such practices influence student initiation into research groups. By focusing closely on the moment-to-moment interactions in various discursive settings (e.g., lab work, group meetings, student presentations), Bleicher identified how students enter into group practices, identify sources for their knowledge through their apprenticeship activities, and thus learn through participation in scientific inquiry.
Studies of students working in small groups in a variety of interactional contexts demonstrate both the potential to provide opportunities to engage with science not readily available in many teacher-directed events and the possible pitfalls of student-centered discourse. Much like the studies of teacher-directed discourse, examination of small-group interaction identifies two key issues for researchers: the structuring of knowledge through discourse and the potential equity concerns found in how science is constructed through discourse. These two issues surface in studies focused on argumentation and more explicitly on equity. The field of argumentation in science education is concerned with scientific knowledge, evidence, and explanation. Issues of equity transcend the interactional contexts of classroom teaching, small-group work, and writing science and show relevance in the many ways language is used in science education. A small but significant body of research has emerged that considers the ways access to scientific knowledge is mediated through discourse and, in particular, how gender, language, and cultural variation in students’ experiences influence success in science. I turn to these fields before reviewing work in written discourse.
Studies of Argumentation, Explanation, and Students’ Use of Evidence
Argumentation refers to the ways that evidence is used in reasoning. As an analytic tool, argumentation analysis has been applied to examine student reasoning, engagement in scientific practices, and development of conceptual and epistemic understandings (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Jimenez-Aleixandre, Rodriguez, & Duschl, 2000; Richmond & Striley, 1996). Studies have included examination of teacher discourse (Carlsen, 1997; Russell, 1983), preservice teacher explanations (Zembal-Saul, Munford, Crawford, Friedrichsen, & Land, 2002), small-group discourse (Kelly, Druker, & Chen, 1998; Richmond & Striley, 1996), and written knowledge (Kelly & Bazerman, 2003). Rationales for the use of argumentation derive from the importance of evidence in science (Bazerman, 1988; Duschl, 1990) and the value of argumentation for unpacking the nature of claims and the warrants for knowledge. Although uses of evidence are often perceived as central for adjudicating among scientific theories, studies of classrooms show that current practices in science teaching offer students few opportunities to engage with scientific evidence, models, and socioscientific issues (Driver et al., 2000).
Research using argumentation analysis begins with a normative model. One model is Toulmin's (1958) layout of arguments. Central components of an argument following Toulmin's model are relevant data, a claim asserted by the author, and warrants supported by theoretical backing. This way of laying out an argument offers some theoretical guidance but does not attend to how the discourse features are argued in situ. Nevertheless, application of Toulmin's layout of arguments to teachers’ discourse allowed researchers to assess the extent to which authority in the classroom was derived from evidence or social standing (Carlsen, 1997; Russell, 1983). In another application, Bell and Linn (2000) adapted the Toulmin method for analysis of student argumentation. In their study of middle-school students’ argument construction, Bell and Linn sought to scaffold student knowledge integration through uses of explanation and evidence with the SenseMaker argument-building tool. This study identified a range of types of arguments formulated by students and how the nature of students’ beliefs about the nature of science was associated with characteristics of the arguments.
Sandoval (2003) provided another argumentation analysis approach based on scientific explanation, in which evidence is considered in the context of building and assessing models. Sandoval's study of students’ understanding of natural selection, using the ExplanationConstructor computer program (as part of the Biology Guided Inquiry Learning Environments [BGuILE] project), examined the causal claims made by students and the ways in which these claims were warranted. Results showed how students were able to adopt explanatory goals and how attention to epistemic practices in specific domains can direct student inquiry to focus on evidence. A similar model was developed by Zembal-Saul et al. (2002) to study uses of explanations by pre-service science teachers. In this study, the software associated with the BGuILE project was similarly shown to support the articulation of evidence-based arguments. Additionally, the study demonstrated ways that the arguments could be improved and the important role the instructor had in supporting students’ argumentation.
Argumentation theory has also been applied to students’ conversations while they are engaged in science investigations. For example, Richmond and Striley (1996) analyzed students’ use of evidence in 10th-grade integrated science and found that although students were able to use evidence, the results varied across student groups. The differential opportunities for demonstrating scientific understanding were constructed in part by the emergence of the social roles of the student group members, particularly as related to the student groups’ leadership roles. In another study, Jimenez-Aleixandre et al. (2000) applied argumentation analysis to student conversations about genetics. By focusing on the argumentative operations proposed by Toulmin (1958) and a set of epistemic operations, including induction, deduction, causality, and plausibility, Jimenez-Aleixandre et al. distinguished engagement in scientific practices from narrower engagement in the specified school task. In another example of the opportunities afforded by first-hand experience with phenomena, the relationship of talk and action was investigated by Abell, Anderson, and Chezem (2000). In this study, the discourse of a teacher and students during a third-grade unit focused on sound was investigated to consider ways in which teachers can place greater emphasis on evidence and explanation. Although the pedagogical goals were only partially met, the study (Abell et al., 2000) showed how students can be introduced to using evidence in arguments and how student inquiry requires both practical experiences and talk about these experiences (Mortimer, 1998).
Three studies of argumentation analysis applied to university writing extended Toulmin's (1958) model and brought into consideration more linguistically oriented methods for analyzing evidence use. Kelly and Takao (2002) introduced an analytic tool to assess university oceanography students’ use of evidence in writing. Recognizing that evidence chains typically span multiple epistemic levels of claim, Kelly & Takao evaluated how students were able to tie specific claims about data representations to claims about geological features and theoretical claims about abstract entities such as terrestrial plates. This model was extended to consider the lexical cohesions tying claims together to form an argument and to recognize the rhetorical moves required of the particular academic task (Kelly & Bazerman, 2003; Takao & Kelly, 2003).
Issues of Access and Equity
Discourse plays a central role in the mediation of knowledge in classrooms. To understand the ways in which students get access to knowledge, and to consider the knowledge that counts as science in given circumstances, researchers have approached issues of equity from a language point of view. Discourse studies of classroom interaction shed light on the ways in which science is framed, who gets to speak about what regarding science, and how issues of language use, choice, and variation represent instances of identity construction. The interactional aspects of classroom life are crucial for understanding how students’ opportunities to succeed in science may be limited. For example, a needs assessment of Hispanic/Latino students in elementary science classrooms in the Southwest region of the United States found that these students were less likely to have access to appropriate science materials (e.g., culturally sensitive textbooks, laboratory apparatus) and were less likely to participate in student-initiated classroom interactions, including hands-on experiences and collaborative group work (Barba, 1993). Given such inequalities, a number of scholars examined variations in culturally and linguistically diverse populations and proposed methods to ameliorate inequities in science education.
Lee and Fradd (1996) studied the interactional patterns of fourth-grade student dyads and teachers in three populations: bilingual Spanish, bilingual Haitian Creole, and monolingual Caucasian English speakers. Lee and Fradd drew from theories of cultural congruence that consider the linguistic and social competence required for participation, recognizing that discourse processes presuppose and entail values, beliefs, culturally based interactional patterns and ways of organizing knowledge. Through the use of three science tasks (weather phenomena, simple machines, and buoyancy), Lee and Fradd were able to ascertain differences in discourse patterns across the populations. These differences were found in both categories of discourse patterns, such as turn taking, unit of discourse, and nonverbal communication, as well as categories of task engagement, which included methods for completing the task, mode of teacher guidance, teacher reinforcement, and student initiative. The study pointed out that students “may have difficulty deciding when to talk, how to present their ideas, and how to demonstrate their understandings” (p. 292). These difficulties may be exacerbated when students’ cultural ways of interacting are not consistent with some standard ways of using scientific discourse in a broader community. The interactional differences thus extend beyond the substantive scientific content of the conversation. In a related study for a similar student population, Lee (1999) examined how students’ worldviews influenced their ways of talking about a natural disaster (Hurricane Andrew). In this case, variations were found in how students attributed the cause of the hurricane; higher SES students and Caucasian students were more likely to describe the causes of the hurricane in terms of natural forces, whereas lower SES students, girls, and African American and Hispanic students included people, nature, and supernatural forces as playing a role in causing the natural disaster (p. 214). The study by Lee shows how student-derived discourse patterns used in classrooms represent a heteroglossia of languages and cultures, and how taken-for-granted interactional patterns, not attending to the multiple ways of speaking and being, may limit access for students.
Some of the most interesting work regarding language minority students and bilingual students has emerged from the Cheche Konnen project (Ballenger, 1997; Roseberry, Warren, & Conant, 1992; Warren, Roseberry, & Conant, 1994). Cheche Konnen, Haitian Creole for “search for knowledge,” was chosen for the name of a group of teachers and researchers collaborating to address issues of access in bilingual classrooms. The project draws theoretically from theories of discourse, science studies, and culture and is aimed at transforming science classrooms. For example, Ballenger's study of multigrade (5–8) bilingual Haitian students demonstrated that, by allowing students to deviate from the standard structure of classroom discussion, the teacher provided multiple opportunities for students to use everyday discourse in constructing scientific knowledge. This change in discourse pattern allowed students to interact more directly, addressing claims made by other students without the intervention of the teacher. The pedagogical foci of this and other related studies shift from transmitting knowledge to engaging students in the scientific practices of argumentation and persuasion and appropriating scientific discourse (Roseberry et al., 1992; Warren & Roseberry, 1995). Engagement in scientific practices and appropriation of scientific discourse are served by designing educational experiences derived from students’ experiences and lifeworlds, such as examination of the safety of the schools’ water supply or bacteria levels in a local pond. By situating students as inquirers who pose questions, find evidence, and communicate results, these studies point to directions for pedagogy that recognizes both the language diversity found in many urban U.S. schools and the usefulness of scientific concepts for problem solving.
Gender equity is also a concern for science education (Baker, 2002). While the long-standing issue of gender inequity in participation and affiliation in science has been noted (Baker, 1998), most research paradigms have examined the issue in terms of cognitive, attitudinal, and epistemic dimensions of students, teachers, and science (Kahle & Meece, 1994). Furthermore, discourse-oriented studies of classroom interaction have only begun to examine the ways in which interactional patterns in science classrooms may be discriminatory to female students. Nevertheless, gender-based interactional patterns have been considered both in teacher-student discourse patterns (Barba & Cardinale, 1991) and in small-group contexts, either as a central focus (Alexopoulou & Driver, 1997) or as part of broader equity concerns (Bianchini, 1999; Lee, 1999).
Gender differences have been identified in ways in which teachers interact with female and male students and how talk and kinds of talk are distributed among members of science classrooms. For example, in a study of teacher-student questioning interactions in secondary science classrooms, Barba and Cardinale (1991) found that female students had fewer interactions with teachers and were posed less cognitively complex questions. These questioning patterns signal views of competence among the students and may contribute to both male and female students’ views about who can and should be successful in science. At the elementary school level, Kurth, Kidd, Gardner, and Smith (2002) studied the discourse patterns of two grade 1/2 combination classes in a professional development school during whole-class conversations to consider variation in the use of paradigmatic (persuasion through formulating an argument) and narrative (story-based, valued for lifelikeness) modes of discourse among students. The analysis considered variations over time, across topics (life or physical science), and by gender. This study examined discourse patterns in more detail than the study of Barba and Cardinale (1991) and led to similar results. The male and female students were not found to show qualitative differences in the uses of narrative and paradigmatic features of discourse; however, male students in both classrooms “obtained more opportunities to practice their use of narrative and paradigmatic discourse either by receiving more speaking turns or expressing more language feature per turn” (Kurth et al., p. 814). As with the case of linguistic minority students, issues of access included the interactional dimensions of discourse.
Gender differences were also found in more complex social interactions, such as those found in small-group interaction. Alexopoulou and Driver (1997) examined gender differences in the discourse of secondary school Greek students working in small groups. Both group composition (self-selected, single-sex groups) and group number (two or four members) were relevant variables. The discourse analysis, like other studies of small-group work (e.g., Bianchini, 1997; Richmond & Striley, 1996), made evident an interaction in the organization of the social activities and the discussions of the substantive science issues. Analysis attentive to gender identified how male groups used confrontation to progress through ideas, whereas female groups sought to maintain consensus among members (Alexopoulou & Driver, 1997).
The issues of gender-oriented discourse patterns intersect with other issues, such as ethnicity and class, and interestingly, in some instances, subject matter (Hughes, 2001). As differences have been found in male and female students’ orientation to science, potential affiliation based on the nature of science presented (Barton, 1998), and cultural variation in discourse patterns regarding phenomena (Lee, 1999), a number of questions are raised as to how research on attitudinal and cognitive variation can be informed by detailed discourse analysis of the interactional events. Discourse analytic research methods may provide new interpretations of equity and associated constructs such as identity, agency, and attribution of success by students, teachers, and researchers.
STUDIES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING WRITING AND READING SCIENCE
Periodically, scientific literacy is put forth as a rationale for reform in science education (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993; DeBoer, 1991; National Research Council [NRC], 1996). Typically, this notion of literacy is quite broad, involving understanding of science concepts, reasoning, and science-technology-society issues, and is tied to notions of citizenship. However, other research focuses more specifically on the reading and writing of science (see special issue of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching [Yore, Holliday, & Alvermann, 1994]). A review of literacy by Norris and Phillips (2003) sets these conceptions in clear relief. Norris and Phillips (2003) define the derived sense of scientific literacy as encompassed in being knowledgeable, learned, and educated in science and fundamental science literacy as coming from the ability to read and write on the subject of science. They argued further that scientific literacy in the fundamental sense, focused on reading and writing texts, forms a basis for understanding science in ways that serve the broader societal goals of scientific literacy. Nevertheless, what counts as the relevant texts in even relatively straightforward science lessons is interactionally accomplished and subject to the contingencies of the particular interaction context. For example, Lemke (2000) identified the multimedia literacy demands of a science lesson that include interpretation of verbal discourse of the teacher and other students; paralinguistic features such as voice quality and pacing; images from a calculator, overhead transparency, and blackboard; writing, diagrams, and mathematical symbols; and manipulation of demonstration apparatus, among others. Much like studies of classroom discourse that depend heavily on various written forms, studies of reading and writing often consider the interaction of written and spoken language (Keys, 2000; Rivard & Straw, 2000). Therefore, the question of what counts as reading, writing, and text is not as obvious as may appear at first glance. Choices regarding the textual forms of science and education lead to theoretical questions.
For the purposes of this review, I shall focus specifically on reading and writing issues identified in the literature that examine written orthographic text. The rationale for this choice is twofold. First, applying functional linguistics to textual features of written science in textbooks and professional scientific papers, Halliday and Martin (1993) identified how written science depends often on unique linguistic features such as interlocking definitions, technical taxonomies, lexical density, syntactic ambiguity, and semantic discontinuity, which pose challenges to student learning. Second, written discourse has played key roles in the history of scientific communities, particularly as related to the development of persuasive texts centered on experimental evidence (Bazerman, 1988; Harris, 1997). Within science education, research on writing in science education has created an extensive body of research (e.g., Hand & Prain, 2002; Hand, Prain, Lawrence, & Yore, 1999; Keys, 1999b, 2000; Keys, Hand, Prain, & Collins, 1999; Prain & Hand, 1999; Rivard, 1994). This research is becoming increasingly integrated with studies of classroom spoken discourse (e.g., Keys, 1997; Rivard & Straw, 2000), thus identifying the important ways in which communication systems work within particular communities of practice. Ultimately, studies of writing and reading in science merit their own extensive review, such as those found in Prain and Hand (1996) and Glynn and Muth (1994).
Reading and Science Learning
One dimension of scientific literacy concerns developing the processes associated with certain tools, procedures, and strategies involving the interpretation of written texts. The value of being able to ascertain and comprehend the meaning of science concepts from printed materials is one central component of science literacy. Issues of meaning making with such written material often center on the important role textbooks play in classroom communication (Hand et al., 1999). Parallel to comprehension, learners’ relative ability to communicate ideas in clear and coherent language (to a given audience) emerges as another key dimension to scientific literacy. Meaning making with written texts and communicating through spoken and written discourse provide ways for students to develop conceptual understanding and for teachers to assess student learning.
Yore et al. (2003) provided an extensive review of literacy in science education. In this review they noted the many early studies of reading that concerned the “readability formulae, reading skills tests, text analysis, page format, and end-of-text questions” (pp. 697–698), and later studies, influenced by constructivist cognitive theories, sought to examine the many ways that reading was part of a broader communicative context of norms, practices, and actions. These later studies consider how textual materials interact with spoken discourse, readers’ metacognition, and science inquiry activities (Yore et al., 2003). Therefore, the emerging view of literacy understands reading as an “interactive and constructive process for meaning making constrained by criteria for good inferences in a sociocultural context” (Hand et al., 2003, p. 612). Although it is not possible to review the full body of research on reading in science (e.g., Yore et al., 2003), I provide a short review of three bodies of literature related to reading in science: how students develop meaningful understanding from science textbooks, how text can be used to support conceptual change, and how readers understand popular reports of science.
In their 1994 review of research on reading and writing to learn, Glynn and Muth (1994) suggested that science curricula can be “placed on a continuum from text-book driven to teacher driven” (p. 1061). In this continuum, the authors suggested that the textbook can potentially serve as a reference source in a teacher-driven curriculum, or as “the engine that drives the curriculum” (p. 1062) in a textbook-driven curriculum. The teachers’ outline for instruction, use of videos, transparencies, laboratory activities, among others, are all products of the textbook's design in a textbook-driven curriculum. The significance of the textbook in classroom learning extends beyond its direct influence on student comprehension of the subject matter, as it typically serves a guideline for instructional choices and for the sequencing of learning events. With the textbook having such a significant role in the learning process, the students’ ability to negotiate meaning through textbook instruction becomes a crucial skill in science classroom learning (cf. comprehension of spoken discourse in Lemke, 1990). Therefore, Glynn and Muth provide analysis of three reading strategies aimed at making learning from textbooks meaningful and conceptually integrated.
Other studies of reading in science are derived from a conceptual change point of view. These studies, reviewed extensively by Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, and Gamas (1993), involved interventions aimed at using text to promote conceptual understandings. Pedagogical strategies derived from reading research included uses of refutational texts, pedagogies aimed at activating student initial knowledge through texts, and variations of textual forms, for example, contrasts between narrative and expository texts. A general finding from these studies was that text could be used to eradicate students’ misconceptions when refutational texts were used with other strategies to promote cognitive conflict. Early science education research tended to examine reading within the context of broader pedagogical practices such as the learning cycle, uses of bridging analogies, and conceptual conflict. These studies were less able to identify particular reading strategies as relevant variables because of the confounding nature of studying reading embedded in broader instructional strategies (Guzzetti et al., 1993).
An additional area of interest for research on reading in science is the use of multiple, alternative sources for texts. Much like the uses of textbooks and refutational texts, the interpretative dimensions of sense making are identified as crucial for effective uses of sources other than books. Wellington and Osborne (2001) provide a number of examples of types of texts that can be used in learning science such as newspapers, tabloids, and pamphlets from advocacy groups. The use of popular accounts, for example, can give students reason to examine issues related to the nature of science. For example, Norris and Phillips (1994) used a study of grade-12 science students reading popular reports on science to consider the issues of knowledge and expertise in interpreting texts. Although the study found that students overestimated the reported truth of scientific claims and failed to understand the extent to which science is textured, the authors point to epistemological issues involving how students’ views of knowledge influence what they learn about science. Norris and Phillips argued that scientific literacy needs to include not only understanding of science concepts, but also a pragmatic understanding of how scientific texts’ structures and intentions can be ascertained. Included in this understanding would be developing competence in the metalanguage of science—that is, making sense of justification and evidence in the argumentative structure of science— and understanding how to value and temper scientific expertise (Norris, 1995).
Learning to Write Science and Writing to Learn Science
Research on writing represents another dimension to discourse studies in science education. Much like the other discourse theories presented in this review, research on writing is informed by multiple theoretical traditions and offers a wealth of empirical studies examining the significance of writing on the learning process (Hand et al., 2003; Hildebrand, 1998; Keys, 1997, 1999b; Rivard, 1994). Prain and Hand (1996) presented a review of the literature on writing for learning in secondary science that provided a broad framework for understanding this literature. This review illustrated variations in thinking about written discourse. Prain and Hand argued there are three major schools of thought, modernist (advocating student use of technical scientific language), constructivist (advocating writing to bring about student understanding of scientific concepts), and postmodern (advocating genres that make visible the sociological aspects of scientific representation in written forms). They built on previous work to present an expanded model of elements for writing for learning in science that included relevant issues related to writing topic, type, purpose, audience, and method of text production. Advocates of student learning of the genre conventions of science (e.g., Halliday & Martin, 1993)—in a sense, a modernist view—and those seeking to understand the value of adhering to a scientific genre for its value in learning while incorporating constructivist pedagogy (e.g., Keys, 1999a) share a common perception regarding the value of science, for access to institutions of power or to powerful knowledge.
One specific outcome of studies of writing to learn in science was the development of the Science Writing Heuristic (Keys, 2000; Keys et al., 1999). The Science Writing Heuristic comprises two components, one oriented to helping teachers develop activities to promote laboratory understanding and another focused on assisting students in developing explanations with their peers (Keys, 1999b). In one study (Keys et al., 1999) the Science Writing Heuristic was shown to develop important attributes in student understanding, including reflection of self-understanding, meaning making with scientific data, and construction of logical-semantic relationships between events. Keys's (2000) study of an application of the Science Writing Heuristic considered how writing about investigations in a scientific genre served student learning. The study drew from the knowledge-transforming model created by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987), which considers both the content problem space and the discourse problem space. The writing under these conditions is posited to serve student subject matter learning. Keys's study showed evidence that for some students the interaction of content and discourse influenced students’ reasoning about data. The study thus poses important questions about the interaction of genre knowledge, rhetorical forms, argumentation patterns, and scientific knowledge. Prain and Hand (1999) also investigated the uses of the Science Writing Heuristic by considering students’ perceptions of writing for learning. They found that students had difficulty understanding how knowledge claims were established in science and how writing could serve as an epistemological tool.
The interaction of spoken and written discourse surfaced as a key dimension in understanding student learning. Rivard and Straw (2000) used a quasi-experimental design to identify the roles of talking, writing and talking, and writing on science learning. Their study focused on middle-school ecology lessons and sought to decipher the various roles of discourse processes on student learning. By separating students into various treatments, they reported that student talk was important for sharing, clarifying, and distributing knowledge, whereas writing helped the development of more structured and coherent ideas for the participating students. Instructor roles have also been shown to influence the nature of writing and perceptions students have of the writing task. Chinn and Hilgers (2000) found that professors of college science writing could provide students with ways of relating their writing to a professional context through supportive feedback and conferencing.
Hildebrand (1998) offered an argument for expanding the academic genre of scientific writing. Her contention was that classroom science writing is hegemonic. As an alternative, she suggested that a pedagogical approach be explored that would allow individuals to apply personal perspectives to scientific writing, which would incorporate the contexts of critical, creative, affective, and feminist pedagogies. Underwriting this perspective is the notion that expanding the genre conventions could potentially address the needs and abilities of students disenfranchised by current writing practices in science classrooms. Similarly, Hanrahan (1999) documented ways that affirmational dialogue journal writing both encouraged students to participate more actively in science and provided alternative ways for students to express their concerns about science and the particular class. Hanrahan made the argument that journal writing can contribute to the development of more democratic and collaborative classrooms. Across the different perspectives there is a recognition that writing needs to be viewed from a situated perspective, acknowledging variations in the educational purposes and tasks, as well as student knowledge and background, particularly as experience with linguistic forms that may be tied to students’ identity and agency (Chinn & Hilgers, 2000; Gee, 2001b).
FUTURE DIRECTIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE STUDY OF DISCOURSE IN SCIENCE EDUCATION
In this section, I build on lessons learned from discourse studies in science education and point to potential avenues for future research. Studies of discourse in science classrooms have contributed to understanding how learning occurs through language, how access to knowledge derives from participating in the social and symbolic worlds, and how disciplinary knowledge is constructed through language. Of the many important future directions for research in discourse studies in science education, I name six: (a) student understanding, participation, and affiliation; (b) equity and access; (c) sociocultural theories of learning; (d) language use and knowledge; (e) student achievement and policy; and (f) teacher education. After reviewing these future research directions, I note some methodological challenges for discourse studies in science education.
A common theme across studies of teacher discourse, small-group discourse, and reading and writing has been the ways in which specific linguistic features of canonical science serve to limit students’ understanding, participation, and affiliation in science. Furthermore, the syntactic features of science language are not the only impediment to student understanding. The particular grammatical forms associated with science discourse do not appear to be isolated from the many other uses and purposes for language use. Thus, studies of classroom life identify how cognitive learning is embedded in and mediated through social interaction and cultural practices. The uses of language in schooling serve many purposes for speakers and hearers, with issues of student identity, cultural knowledge, and idiosyncratic ways of talking science surfacing often as unresolved topics for further investigation. Both tensions and bridging strategies were found between students’ ways of talking and the thematic content of science found in teacher discourse and textbooks (Gallas, 1995; Lemke, 1990). Tensions derived from students’ knowledge and discourse as compared with the ways this knowledge and discourse are valued by educational institutions proved relevant to issues of access and equity.
Issues of equity, with particular concern for examining language variation across gender, ethnicity, and class, were closely tied to understanding the relationship between students’ talk and canonical science as manifested in classroom life. Discourse-oriented studies show how educational opportunity (or lack thereof) for students is socially constructed in discourses of schooling. Closely tied to issues of identity and agency (Brown, 2004; Reveles, Cordova, & Kelly, 2004), analysis of the discourses of schooling needs to consider the ways in which students are positioned among themselves, the teacher, and the putative knowledge (Hughes, 2001; Luke, 1995; Moje et al., 2001). Discourse variations and choices among repertoires of ways of speaking need to be investigated for language minority students; students of differing ethnicity, language, and culture; and others marginalized by current instructional practices.
Educational events, predominately discourse events of some sort, were shown to encompass cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions of knowing and learning. Although sociocultural theories of learning are entering the field (Duschl, 1998), there is a lack of science education research examining how sociocultural psychology can be informed by studies of science discourse processes in schooling and how the creation of new educational contexts for learning can be informed by sociocultural theory. Although the potential for fruitful interaction was indicated across instructional strategies, the research in small-group work was the most explicit about how discourse processes were framed by textual, interactional, and cultural variables (e.g., Hogan, 1999; Kelly et al., 2001; Kurth, et al., 2002; Roth et al., 1999). Understanding how learning can be viewed over time within activity systems remains an area for future research in science education.
Studies of language in use in science classrooms presuppose assumptions about knowledge. Some common background knowledge is required for participants in a discourse event to achieve some mutual understanding. Minimally, such knowledge concerns the uses of language, the nature of the conversation within the sociocultural backdrop, the purposes of the interchange, and the phenomena under consideration. Studies of classrooms have noted the ways that scientific knowledge is framed by discourse and how, in the process, science is often portrayed in an ideological manner (e.g., Lemke, 1990; Moje 1995; Sutton, 1996). Simply, discourse processes send messages about the nature of science. These messages may be mediated by choices in pedagogy. Whereas the ideological images of science have been identified to some extent, more normative visions of science have received less scrutiny. An emerging group of studies, however, considers the epistemological assumptions of classroom discourse and opens the way for implications about the pedagogies of inquiry-oriented science (Hammer & Elby, 2003; Kelly et al., 2000; Sandoval, 2003). In many cases, these pedagogies are supported by educational technology.
The body of literature on discourse processes in science education treats student acquisition and understanding of science in a variety of ways. Whether the study of teacher discourse or students’ learning to write in scientific genres, student learning is central to concerns about uses of language. Although these studies often focus on the details of student uses of specialized language, there has been an absence of consideration of how such studies may influence educational policy (Hand et al., 2003). Part of the absence is due to focus. Whereas discourse studies often examine the micro-worlds of everyday life, policy concerns typically focus on broader more blunt measures of success. Therefore, an important area for research will be ways that studies of language use can influence policies that often have great influence on classroom life.
Teacher education is an important part of research in science education, although there have been relatively few studies of the discourse of teacher education. Two sorts of studies seem to emerge from this review. First, there is a need to continue studies of teacher education (e.g., Bianchini & Solomon, 2003; Zembal-Saul et al., 2002). Much of the work of teacher education has not been documented in the same detail as studies of science classroom discourse. Nevertheless, the work of teacher education has developed specialized language to accomplish the tasks of learning through teaching. The discursive work of teacher education needs to be examined. Second, there is a need to consider ways that discourse studies of spoken and written texts can be used to effectively inform teacher education. Creating a database of classroom events for examination and reflection by teachers and teacher educators would facilitate the uses of results of discourse studies to improve classroom teaching and learning.
Instructional issues such as discourse variation, access, identity, and the embeddedness of talk in social action pose methodological challenges for future research, particularly as many nations face increased pressures to produce quantifiable measures of learning. These methodological challenges are at least threefold. First, the research reviewed in this chapter made clear that understanding instances of talk required understanding the social practices of the participants, established over time, through multiple media. Therefore, as discourse studies in science education move to consider further the cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions of schooling, research methods will have to become more comprehensive in scope. These methods may require additional intellectual resources across subject matters of science, social science fields, and importantly those from the relevant community of the learners. Second, the embodied nature of discourse suggests that studies need to attend to interaction in greater detail, drawing from the intellectual resources of multiple theoretical points of view. This requires detailed analysis of verbal and nonverbal communication and the multitude of texts, images, inscriptions, and graphic representations. Third, discourse analytic work needs to find ways to tie the micromoments of interaction to institutional issues, and ultimately to educational policy. This may require the development of further systematic methods for investigation, but also strategies for communicating to those who influence education on a broad scale. Despite such challenges, the study of discourse offers much hope for improving our understanding of the ways in which science education is interactionally accomplished.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank Bryan Brown for helping to identify the articles presented in the review and for many conversations about students, discourse, and identity. In addition, the author wishes to thank Judith Green and Jacqueline Regev for comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Thanks also to Carolyn Wallace and Larry Yore, who reviewed this chapter.
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1. This pattern has been similarly labeled IRE (initiation-response-evaluation) or IRF (initiation-response-feedback); see Cazden (2001), Mehan (1979), and Sinclair & Coulthard (1975).
2. Critical discourse analysis examines the role of discourse in society and culture and how discourse plays a role in sociocultural reproduction and change (Fairclough, 1995; Luke, 1995).
3. Ethnomethodology is not a research method, but rather an orientation that focuses on the ordinary actions of people as they proceed through everyday life; it studies the methods people use in various contexts to get through the mundane activities in their given situations (Lynch, 1993; Mehan, 1979). Although few discourse studies in science education draw from this tradition, it provides an interesting contrast with other discourse studies.