ERIC Number: EJ1235829
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Dec
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0157-244X
EISSN: N/A
Navigating the Complexity of Socio-Scientific Controversies--How Students Make Multiple Voices Present in Discourse
Solli, Anne; Hillman, Thomas; Mäkitalo, Åsa
Research in Science Education, v49 n6 p1595-1623 Dec 2019
In this article, we argue that students' unfolding discourse on socio-scientific issues (SSI) can be fruitfully analyzed by using dialogical theories of language and communication (Bakhtin 1986; Linell 2009). While research in science education often reports on how individual reasoning changes when bringing SSI into the classroom, we argue for the relevance of analyzing "how the individual is 'in dialogue' with present as well as remote interlocutors and contexts on the internet." We suggest that the analytical approach is particularly sensitized to illuminate how students' handle multiple perspectives. A dialogical perspective takes as its premise that SSI are part of society, where politicians, interest groups, and scientists engage in debates and offer perspectives that are often in conflict. Rather than assuming that "the individual student" is the primary unit for analysis, a dialogical approach is premised on an analysis that incorporates several perspectives and voices--a multivocality that also resides with the individual. Arguing for the relevance of this analytical approach to studies of SSI in the classroom, we analyze a group of students in upper secondary school as they discuss hydraulic fracturing after having worked with online data. The results illuminate how students discursively manage multivocality and multimodality inherent in the following SSI online. We describe a set of discursive means that the students use to handle the many perspectives involved when communicating about the issue. In addition, we describe and articulate what kind of communicative competences that are involved and, hence, could be cultivated through education, when engaging in public debates.
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Controversial Issues (Course Content), Thinking Skills, Discourse Analysis, Dialogs (Language), Teaching Methods, Secondary School Students, Scientific Attitudes, Fuels, Environmental Education, Conflict
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A