Multilingual youth, from nondominant communities, are often denied critical opportunities for engagement in robust sensemaking due to deficit-based perspectives and linguistic hierarchies. To advance equity, it is important to recognize all youth as epistemic agents and facilitate opportunities to take on intellectual positions. Drawing on…

Orchestrating inquiry-based science learning in the classroom is a complex undertaking. It requires fitting the culture of the classroom with the teacher's teaching and inquiry practices. To understand the interactions between these variables in relation to student learning, we conducted an investigation in two different classroom settings to…

Guided by sociological perspectives that view (young) children as agents who are shaped by and shape the structures of social systems in which they live, we studied forms that agency of young children from historically marginalized groups may take in science class when offered opportunities to engage in science in a variety of ways, how curricular…

Using a case study approach, this manuscript describes the professional transformation of Gary--an Anglo, male novice teacher--by focusing on his first two years of teaching in a culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged school. As a participant of a larger hybrid, intervention project with peers, Gary received multiple hands-on and…

This case study explored sociocultural forces that influenced three 10th grade public high school biology teachers' instructional goals, instructional acts, and identity narratives related to the teaching of evolution. Primary data included field observations of classroom instruction and teacher interviews. Secondary data included informal…

There is a need for research that depicts better-differentiated social contexts for science education in their full complexity. Social scientists have developed a promising model for research in context. Three critical conceptual and methodological strands of the model are discussed, along with their implications for science education research.…

Describes a study of the effects of instructional practices recommended by the National Science Education Standards on individual achievement. Finds that whereas the instructional policies suggested in the Standards may be associated with higher achievement overall, they are equally likely to have the unintended consequence of contributing to…

Investigation found that instruction through the use of the sociocultural mode has a positive effect on students' attitudes toward learning science (n=600 Nigerian students). The findings also indicate that anthropomorphic and mechanistic views can be presented in such a way as to promote positive attitudes toward the study of science in…