Shamika Could Become a Scientist: Unpacking Discourse and Power in Science Education

• In Event: Promoting Equity Through Dialogic Education: New Voices

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes
This paper examines how equitable opportunities to learn are structured at the micro-level - in interaction between teachers and students, in discourse. We analyze teacher reasoning about science discussions to examine what teachers perceive of about student contributions in discussion and how these perceptions shape instructional decisions that they make on how to support the development of student thinking in science. Our analyses draw on Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital to show the semiotic resources that teachers draw on to make sense of students’ contributions in discussions (Bourdieu, 1977). Our findings help to problematize the attributions that are made of students’ linguistic (and thus, intellectual capital) for collective meaning making of scientific phenomena. Using a case study of Shamika, an African-American 9th grader participating in a discussion on genetic inheritance, we imagine how the proximal work of leveraging her linguistic capital - and thus creating intellectual space for her to make sense of science in discussions - could afford distal possibilities of becoming a scientist.

Theoretical Framework
Bourdieu uses the metaphor, linguistic capital, to describe socially situated language production, which conceptualizes the influence of macro-level social structures on micro-level interactions (Bourdieu, 1991). By arguing that language is a form of capital, which takes on value with respect to the social context of its production, we examine how teachers can attribute value differentially to students and their contributions in class discussions as they structure the collective sense-making of scientific phenomena. Our work is situated in empirical research that has shown that when teachers’ lead students in collaborative reasoning discussions, students benefit in terms of robust learning (Clarke et al, 2015).

Methods/Data Source
We report on analyses of responses to a scenario-based survey instrument of teachers’ pedagogical reasoning about science discussions. The instrument is comprised of authentic video segments of whole class discussions on genetic inheritance from culturally and linguistically diverse 9th grade biology classrooms. The instrument was administered to 26 secondary science teachers that teach in urban and suburban secondary schools across the US. Survey responses were systematically coded using content and discourse analyses. Analyses focus on the semiotic resources that teachers draw on as heuristics for making sense of student thinking in these class discussions, and what to do to facilitate student learning in these discussions. We use case-study to examine in-depth the relationship between the discursive artifact (discussion in which Shamika is seeking understanding about genetic inheritance) and teachers’ responses that make attributions about Shamika’s contributions. Data were coded by multiple raters with very good interrater agreement.

Results/Scholarly Significance
Our findings indicate that teachers often attended to what they perceive students did not know, could not do, or did not say. In addition, teachers’ attribute differential value to individual students’ contributions – whereby certain student’s contributions are attributed more value, and thus more relevant to utilize for whole class learning. We discuss what it could mean for the contributions of students like Shamika’s to be valued as legitimate in the collective conceptual development of a class.

Authors

• Sherice Clarke, University of California - San Diego

• Brianna R Ramirez, University of California - San Diego

• Mayra Puente, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Kirk D. Rogers, University of California - San Diego