Earth science education, as it is traditionally taught, involves presenting concepts such as weathering, erosion, and deposition using relatively well-known examples--the Grand Canyon, beach erosion, and others. However, these examples--which resonate well with middle- and upper-class students--ill-serve students of poverty attending urban schools…

The purpose of this study was to explore Chinese and Australian primary children's conceptual understandings of the Earth. The research was conducted in the interpretive paradigm and was designed to be descriptive with comparative and cross sectional elements. Participants were Year 3 and Year 6 children from three schools in Hunan Province,…

Tao, Oliver, and Venville's paper addresses a debate between two hypotheses of children's development of conceptual understandings of the Earth. The authors aim to investigate whether culture influences students' conceptions of the Earth. However, one questionable assumption shared among conception and conceptual change studies is that researchers…

The present research aims at pinpointing differences in spontaneous and non-spontaneous mental models of water cycle conceptions of two 4th grade student groups: the Jewish residents of a small provincial town and a group of students from an indigenous Bedouin community. Students' conceptions were elicited using the Repertory Grid technique as…

Based on the comments by Lopez-Facal and Jimenez-Aleixandre, we consider that the cultural identities within Europe interfere with the question of the re-introduction of the Slovenian bear, generating a kind of "discrimination." When the SAQs under debate run against the students' systems of value, it seems that the closer the connection between…

This project explores "conceptual continuity" as a framework for understanding students' native ways of understanding and describing. Conceptual continuity suggests that the relationship between the use of words in one genre and the scientific genre can exist at varying levels of association. This perspective can reveal the varied relationships…

We review Brown and Kloser's article, "Conceptual continuity and the science of baseball: using informal science literacy to promote students science learning" from a Vygotskian cultural-historical and dialectic perspective. Brown and Kloser interpret interview data with student baseball players and claim that students' conceptual understanding…

In the learning sciences, students' understanding of scientific concepts has often been approached in terms of "conceptual change". These studies are grounded in a cognitive or a socio-cognitive approach to students' understanding and imply a focus on the individuals' mental representations of scientific concepts and ideas. We approach students'…

In this rejoinder, I comment on how going through the activity of participating in this forum and of engaging in dialogue with my commentators makes sense at several levels--most importantly, at the personal and the conceptual--and how these two levels are intricately connected. The link between the personal and conceptual (cognition and…

In this response, we attempt to clarify our position on conceptual change, state our position on mental models being a viable construct to represent learning, indicate important issues from the social cultural perspective that can inform our work on conceptual change and lastly comment on issues that we consider to be straw men. Above all we argue…

This paper offers steps towards overcoming current fragmentation within sociocultural approaches by expansively reconstructing a broad dialectical view on human development and learning (drawing on Vygotsky's project) underwritten by ideology of social justice. The common foundation for sociocultural approaches is developed by dialectically…

There are some fundamental--i.e., "essential"--differences between conceptual change theory and a rigorously applied discourse approach to the question of what and how people know. In this rejoinder, I suggest that the differences are paradigmatic because, among others, the units of analysis used and the data constructed are irreconcilably…

This paper begins with a consideration of some important themes dealt with in the paper by Treagust and Duit. These include the relationship between research on conceptual change and educational practice, the significance of emotion and identity in the process of conceptual change, and role of cognitive conflict in motivating change. I then argue…

This paper attempts to advance the thinking in Stetsenko's paper by situating the concepts of relational ontology and transformative activist stance in the context of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. In so doing, we hope to make Stetsenko's ideas more operational in terms of access and application by researchers, teachers, policy makers and…

We discuss the eight papers in this issue of "Cultural Studies of Science Education" focusing on the debate over conceptual change in science education and explore the issues that have emerged for us as we consider how conceptual change research relates to our practice as science educators. In presenting our interpretations of this research, we…