Toward Equitable Distributions of Authority in Science Classroom Collaborative Groupwork

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Equitable Participation and Discourse in Science Teaching and Learning

Abstract

In effective science education, all students have access to participate in sensemaking. Efforts to promote equitable participation depend on how authority is distributed during group work. Drawing on existing models of influence and participation within small groups, we analyze middle school science classroom and interview data to understand how inequitable distributions of authority among students may be disrupted. The teacher’s brief intervention into the participation dynamics of a collaborative small group was effective in disrupting inequitable distributions of authority, leading to more equitable interactions among students. This contributes to prior research on classroom discourse by showing how modest interventions can disrupt exclusionary dynamics to support more fluid, equitable positioning, underscoring the importance of teacher responsiveness during group collaboration.

Authors

• Etta C Pope, Northwestern University

• Olga Vaskova, Northwestern University

• Jason Buell, Northwestern University

• Brian J. Reiser, Northwestern University