Teachers’ Inclusive Strategies to Accommodate 5th GradePupils’ Crossing of Cultural Borders in Two GreekMulticultural Science Classrooms

Panagiotis Piliouras & Odysseas Evangelou

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract The demographic changes in Greek schools underline the need for reconsideringthe way in which migrant pupils move from their everyday culture into the culture of schoolscience (a process known as “cultural border crossing”). Migrant pupils might facedifficulties when they attempt to transcend cultural borders and this may influence theirprogress in science as well as the construction of suitable academic identities as a means ofpromoting scientific literacy. In the research we present in this paper, adopting thesocioculturally driven thesis that learning can be viewed and studied as a meaning-making,collaborative inquiry process, we implemented an action research program (school year2008–2009) in cooperation with two teachers, in a primary school of Athens with 85%migrant pupils. We examined whether the two teachers, who became gradually acquaintedwith cross-cultural pedagogy during the project, act towards accommodating the crossing ofcultural borders by implementing a variety of inclusive strategies in science teaching. Ourfindings reveal that both teachers utilized suitable cross-border strategies (strategiesconcerning the establishment of a collaborative inquiry learning environment, and strategiesthat were in accordance with a cross-border pedagogy) to help students cross smoothlyfrom their “world” to the “world of science”. A crucial key to the teachers’ expertise wastheir previous participation in collaborative action research (school years 2004–2006), inwhich they analyzed their own discourse practices during science lessons in order toestablish more collaborative inquiry environments.

Keywords Science teaching . Collaborative inquiry . Teachers’ inclusive strategies . Primaryschool migrant pupils . Discourse analysis

Res Sci EducDOI 10.1007/s11165-010-9198-x

P. Piliouras (*) :O. EvangelouPrimary Education Council, Trapezountos 26 Str., Zip Code 12134 Peristeri, Greecee-mail: ppiliour@sch.grURL: http://users.att.sch.gr/ppiliour/

O. Evangeloue-mail: oevangelou@hotmail.com

Introduction

The demographic changes in Greek schools underline the need to reconsider the way inwhich migrant pupils move from their everyday culture into the culture of school science, aprocess known as “cultural border crossing”, according to Giroux (1992). Many scienceeducation researchers indicate that migrant pupils might face difficulties when attempting totranscend cultural borders (e.g., Brown 2004; Lee and Luykx 2006) and that this, in relationto factors such as the lack of culturally sensitive curricula, assessments and teachingstrategies, may influence their progress in science and the construction of suitable academicidentities as a means of promoting scientific literacy (e.g., Jegede and Aikenhead 1999;Aikenhead 2001).

In our work, we adopt the socioculturally driven positions that the learning process canbe viewed and studied as the acquisition of the culture of science (e.g., Jegede andAikenhead 1999) and also as an appropriation-transformation through participation ingradually evolving discourses and practices (e.g., Rogoff 2003). To accomplish this choice,we believe that we should search for a collaborative inquiry in nature (e.g., Wells 1999) anda discourse-oriented learning environment (e.g., Hicks 1996; Kelly and Sezen 2010). In thiscontext, teachers play a fundamental role in facilitating scientific understanding andscientific literacy during classroom interaction, as they guide students in perceiving thedifferences between their own everyday knowledge and scientific disciplinary knowledge(Reveles et al. 2008). In the research effort we present in this paper, adopting thesocioculturally driven thesis that learning can be viewed and studied as a meaning making,collaborative inquiry process, we have implemented an action research program incooperation with two teachers, in a primary school of Athens with 85% migrant pupils.We examined whether the two teachers, who became gradually acquainted with a borderpedagogy during the project, function towards accommodating the crossing of culturalborders by implementing a variety of inclusive strategies in science teaching: strategiesconcerning the establishment of a collaborative inquiry learning environment; strategies thatwere in accordance with Pomeroy’s agendas (1994); and ways of suitably exploiting theinstructional means they used during science lessons.

Learning as a Meaning-making Collaborative Inquiry Process

Nowadays, the social character of human cognition and the determinant role of languageand communicative interaction in the transformation and appropriation of knowledge arewell recognized (e.g., Rogoff 2003; Wells 2007; Kovalainen and Kumpulainen 2007).According to this socioculturally driven thesis, learning is a meaning-making, collaborativeinquiry process that occurs through participation in cultural, dialogic activities with peersand other more knowledgeable members (e.g., teachers) of the culture. At the heart ofsociocultural approaches, in both theory and practice, lies the collaborative andtransformative way in which knowledge is co-constructed (learning as collaborativeinquiry). As Rogoff (2003: 281) claims, “thinking is collaborative and distributed amongpeople in shared endeavors”. Learning takes place in a social context and is mediated byculture that plays a large part in shaping the development of individual minds (Wells andClaxton 2002).

A series of notions that are based on sociocultural and sociolinguistic theoretical accountsinform the pedagogical praxis of science teaching and learning. They all study and theorizeabout how cultural meanings, values and practices are appropriated by persons growing up and

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learning within a concrete context. We will refer to some of these socioculturally-orientedtheoretical constructions. Roth (1995), based on the work of Wittgenstein, introduced thenotion of “language games”. During science lessons, teachers and their pupils participate andplay language games, as any social practice, through mutual observation, emulation, andcorrection in collectively-observable situations (Roth 1995: 5). Other researchers, based onBakhtin’s work, introduced the notion of “hybrid dialogues” (e.g., Kamberelis 2001). Inspiredby Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogism, hybridity is a means for pupils and the whole scienceclassroom to play with and create concepts, stances, identities and interpretations in theongoing process of collaborative inquiry learning, through discourse practices suitably guidedby teachers. Two other useful theoretical notions for our context are the “instructionalcongruence” and the “third space” metaphors. Lee and Fradd (1998) introduced the idea ofinstructional congruence as the process of mediating the nature of academic content withstudents’ language and cultural experiences to make this content accessible and meaningful toa diverse group of students. In regard to the third space, according to Wallace and Narayan(2002), this is an area in which neither one of two different languages is dominant, but whereboth may be translated and negotiated according to experiences taking place in that space.Finally, two other useful notions are those of “Discourses” and the “creation of diversecommunicative spaces” (Hicks 1996). According to Gee (1999), a Discourse integrates waysof talking, listening, writing, and reading, but also integrates acting, interacting, believing,valuing, and feeling into patterns associated with a recognizable social network, for examplethe scientific community. The various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons arechanging and often are not fully consistent with each other. This is the very problem thatpupils face in crossing the borders from everyday knowledge (everyday Discourse) to theknowledge of science (school science Discourse).

Socioculturally-oriented approaches indicate that the guidance of science teachers and theinclusive strategies they use—or do not use—are of fundamental importance in establishingenvironments that promote collaborative inquiry learning conditions, especially in multiculturalclassrooms. In such a collaborative inquiry approach, scientific literacy is conceptualized as adiscourse (Lemke 2001), as our discussion of the relative socioculturally-oriented notions (e.g.,language games, hybrid dialogues, instructional congruence) mentioned above indicates. Thisview of science as a discourse helps us to see scientific literacy not only as the acquisition ofspecific facts and procedures or even as the refinement of a mental model, but as a socially andculturally produced way of thinking and knowing (Gee 1999). As Rosebery et al. (1992) pointout “...with this view of scientific literacy comes the view that to become scientifically literate,students (and teachers, too) need to be enculturated into the ways of making sense that arecharacteristic of scientific communities. They must learn to use language, to think, and to actas members of a scientific community”. In this context, scientific literacy can be seen as anemergent feature of collective human praxis (Roth and Lee 2002).

Everyday Culture—Science Culture: Cultural Border Crossing

The multiple aspects of culture—such as the culture of home, peers, school or classroom—differentiate various social groups within a community, including the pupils’ home culture,from the culture of school science. Pupils soon realize that the world of school science “...isanother culture with which he/she has to interact with, bringing with him/her the otherbaggage of cultures he/she already carries” (Jegede and Aikenhead 1999: 2).

Science teaching and learning should be culturally sensitive, giving attention to what isreally happening in learners’ minds and hearts (Hewson 1988). Some educational

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researchers suggest that, in many cases, children who come from ethnic and linguisticminority backgrounds are confronted by subtle conflicts with the “ways of being”associated with school success and, therefore, experience much difficulty navigating withinschooling institutions (e.g., Hanrahan 2002). Moreover, McIntyre et al. (2001) argue thatminority and working-class children can find school a confusing and sometimesuncomfortable place. In this context, children’s transition into school science may be anunfamiliar and confusing procedure.

This transition can be seen in terms of “border crossing”, a metaphor first used byGiroux (1992). Giroux proposed a border pedagogy which, as pedagogical practice,underscores the need to challenge and resist existing boundaries of knowledge and createnew ones. In the context of border pedagogy, it is imperative to create classroom conditionsthat facilitate students’ ability to speak, write, and listen in a “multiperspectival language”(Giroux 1997). Within this discourse, students are no longer marginalized but engaged asborder-crossers who challenge, cross, remap, and rewrite borders as they enter into counter-discourse with established boundaries of white and class-specific knowledge, especiallywith issues concerning liberty, equity and justice. In the context of border pedagogy,teachers become border-crossers when they legitimize excluded social narratives,experiences and voices and make them available in the classroom. According to Giroux(1992: 30), “in this sense, border pedagogy extends the meaning and importance ofdemystification as a central pedagogical task”.

Aikenhead (1996) applied the work of Giroux to school science by suggesting that,when pupils learn science, they often cross a cultural boundary from their own life-worldculture into the subculture of a science classroom or to the subculture of science itself.Aikenhead conceptualized this transition between the students’ life-world experiences andschool science experiences as a cultural border crossing. According to researchers orientedto issues concerning cross-cultural pedagogy (Phelan et al. 1991; Costa 1995; Cobern andAikenhead 1998; Jegede and Aikenhead 1999) these transitions, or border crossings, aresmooth for “Potential Scientists”, are manageable for other “Smart Kids”, but are mostoften hazardous (“I Don’t Know” Students) or impossible (“Outsiders”) for some others.

In this direction, many researchers support that educators must develop an awareness of howto access students’ native ways of being as a resource for teaching (Reveles et al. 2008). For aneffective, culturally sensitive and inclusive instruction, it is very important for teachers tounderstand the way cultural border crossings take place. Pupils’ success in science dependson the assistance they receive when they attempt to cross these cultural borders. Jegede andAikenhead (1999) support that success in science courses depends on: 1) the degree ofcultural difference that pupils perceive between their life-world and their science classroom;2) how effectively pupils move between their life-world culture and the culture of science orschool science; and 3) the assistance pupils receive in making those transitions easier. Jegedeand Aikenhead (1999) propose a special pedagogy for cross-cultural science teaching inwhich teachers play the role of culture broker in the environment of the classroom in order toachieve a culturally sensitive curriculum and assessment.

Reveles et al. (2008) use another metaphor, a “contextual shifting” metaphor, tohighlight the fact that, as people move from context to context, they are often required tochange their ways of speaking, acting, and interacting with others in order to be acceptedand to benefit from cultural membership. We agree with Reveles et al. (2008) who supportthat many ethnic and linguistic minority students are not explicitly taught contextualshifting (i.e., changing their ways of speaking, acting, and interacting) in ways that lead toschool success. In the collaborative inquiry approach we adopted, we suggested that scienceteachers search for ways and inclusive strategies that facilitate pupils’—and especially migrant

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pupils’—cultural border crossing. This means that, throughout our research, we (researchersand teachers) discussed and reflected on alternative ways and strategies in order to achieveculturally sensitive conditions in science lessons. Certainly, in achieving this, we informed theteachers about all the theoretical notions that we considered important concerning ourassumption of learning as a meaning-making collaborative inquiry process and issues that wererelated to a border pedagogy-oriented to a cross-cultural science teaching.

A prominent place in this theoretical support of teacher-researchers was held byPomeroy’s (1994) research agendas. Among Pomeroy’s (1994) research agendas for scienceeducation for cultural diversity, factors that encourage pupils to cross cultural borders intoschool science include:

Agenda 2: Science curriculum and assessment in the context of pupils’ lives.Agenda 3: Suitable teaching strategies for diverse learners: For example, in this context, a

teacher should scaffold students’ learning; check on group progress; assist pupilsin combining ideas and improving interactions with their schoolmates; ask pupilsto discuss their opinions; and invite all pupils to contribute to the discussion.

Agenda 4: Inclusion of the contributions of those generally omitted and culturallysensitive instruction strategies: In this context, among other things, a teachershould have high expectations from his pupils, invite all pupils to state theiropinions, involve all students in discussion, and facilitate pupils’ bordercrossings into school science.

Agenda 6: Science for language minority students including non-standard nativespeakers. Here, the teacher should help pupils make links between colloquialand scientific language and introduce and reinforce subject-specific conceptsand language. The “third space” metaphor is a useful tool to implement inAgenda 6, as it enables students to see intersections or bridges betweeneveryday language and scientific language (Wallace and Narayan 2002).

Agenda 8: Effective teaching activities which create bridges between the scientific contentand pupils’ beliefs and preconceptions of science. Agenda 8 is compatible withthe instructional congruence perspective, according to which, in order forteachers to help students appropriate scientific knowledge, they need to drawfrom students’ daily discourses, develop students’ awareness of differentdiscourses, and make connections between students’ daily discourses andscience discourses (Moje et al. 2001).

We, the researchers, thoroughly discussed the above agendas with the two teachers. Wealso used Pomeroy’s directions as a descriptive context, which helped us to analyzewhether, in terms of action research, the teachers were using suitable discourse strategiesfor the creation of more inclusive learning conditions during science lessons.

Reviewing Literature: Difficulties that Migrant Pupils May Encounter in ScienceClassrooms and Directions for More Inclusive Science Lessons

Even though social constructivism has dominated educational literature for more than twodecades and sociocultural approaches for a little less, it is difficult for someone to claim that theirrespective pedagogy is applied in all contemporary classrooms. This also applies to Greece.

Research on science achievement has revealed significant gaps among students ofdiverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds (Lee and Luykx 2007). The field ofscience education is known as a subject which most students find difficult and which too

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many find alienating (e.g., Lemke 1990; Hanrahan 2002). Hanrahan (2002) asserts thatscience is the sociocultural practice of a distinct discourse community which is only easilyaccessible to a minority of students. Some educational researchers suggest that in manycases, children who come from ethnic and linguistic minority backgrounds are confrontedby subtle conflicts with the “ways of being” associated with school success and, therefore,experience much difficulty navigating within schooling institutions (Lee and Luykx 2006;Reveles et al. 2008).

The sociocultural perspectives provide us with a useful explanation for these majorproblems. As Hanrahan (2002) maintains, “it is the dominant teacher discourse practicesthat alienate students from science”. Lemke (1990) holds that a major reason that leadsstudents to become alienated from science is the way teachers talk science:

“How does science teaching alienate so many students from science? ... One way thishappens, Ι believe, is through the way we talk science. The language of classroomscience sets up a pervasive and false opposition between a world of objective,authoritative, impersonal, humorless scientific fact and the ordinary, personal worldof human uncertainties, judgments, values, and interests” (pp. 129–130).

Taylor (1994) suggests that science teachers have generally been inducted into thehegemonic discourse of science education and do not have the cultural resources or socialsupport to enact the science curriculum differently, despite their best intentions. Manyscholars adhering to socioculturally driven positions argue for the necessity of the explicitappropriation by teachers of the rules of communication and the rules of language practice.Wertsch (1991) regards conscious reflection as an important element in development withinmediated action.

A reason for the difficulty in establishing a collaborative inquiry and a culturallysensitive environment in science teaching classrooms is, as Lee and Luykx (2007),Hanrahan (2002), Taylor (1994), Lemke (1990) and others claim, that many teachers lackthe suitable cultural repertoires to implement effective inclusive discursive repertoires andcollaborative inquiry activities.

Literature research indicates many useful ways and strategies for the creation ofcollaborative inquiry and inclusive learning conditions especially in multicultural schools.

As Coelho (1998: 227) maintains, “You can offer your students a more inclusivecurriculum by broadening the traditional concepts of science and technology, and viewingthese fields of human development from a variety of perspectives. For example: Diversifythe image of the scientist”. According to Hodson (1993, in Coelho 1998: 227) “The sciencecurriculum may be more attractive to minority students and culturally enriching foreveryone, if it includes the achievements of scientists and mathematicians, ancient andmodern, from many parts of the world”.

Coelho (1998: 227–228) also proposes some useful methods and strategies for creatinginclusive learning conditions, especially in multicultural schools. Some of them suggest thatteachers:

◦ Choose or create texts and other resources that counteract the image of the scientist asa white male, by providing examples of female scientists and scientists of color.

◦ Emphasize interdependence in science: Explain that many of the greatest discoveriesdid not come about as the result of one scientist’s independent work.

◦ Value intuition and imagination by not over-emphasizing “the scientific method” asthe only way that scientists think and work.

◦ Include “ordinary science” by developing a critical awareness of “scientific racism”.

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Cobern and Aikenhead (1998: 50), as well as Jegede and Aikenhead (2004: 162), alsoput forward certain ways and strategies towards cross-cultural science teaching. Amongthese are:

◦ Make border crossings explicit for pupils.◦ Facilitate these border crossings.◦ Promote discourse so pupils are: a) talking in their own cultural interpretiveframework as well as in the framework of science, and b) cognizant about whichculture they are talking in at any given time.

◦ Substantiate and build on the validity of pupils’ personally and culturally constructedways of knowing.

The above directions (which are all linked to Pomeroy’s agendas, e.g., the first two arerelated to Agendas 3 and 4, while the final two have to do with Agenda 8), together withother researchers’ (e.g., Snively 1995; Lee and Luykx 2006; César and Kumpulainen 2009)grounded work on ways and strategies for teaching culturally diverse students, enlightenand give meaning and essential value to Pomeroy’s research agendas. Snively (1995) hasproposed fifteen specific instructional strategies and considerations for culture brokers touse when teaching western science to the First Nations’ (the Aboriginal peoples of Canada)pupils. The collaborative inquiry perspective, combined with its consecutive teachingstrategies, guided us in our effort to pursue more inclusive conditions in the two 5th gradescience classrooms that we studied.

Purpose and Research Questions

The existing literature points to an array of issues related to ways of accommodating thecrossing of cultural borders, as well as many strategies and suitable teachers’ culturalrepertoires for the creation of a more suitable collaborative inquiry and inclusive learningconditions, especially in multicultural classrooms. During our action research, the twoteachers gradually became informed about and sensitive to this literature. Our studyexamined which methods and strategies were used by these two teachers during sciencelessons in a multicultural classroom setting, where they worked during the school year2008–2009. These considerably experienced teachers participated in a collaborative actionresearch program from 2004 to 2006, in order to become acquainted with repertoiressuitable for creating more collaborative conditions in their science lessons, and for settingup more suitable inclusive learning conditions in the classroom.

The study examined three research questions:

1. What strategies did the teachers use to promote conditions that establish a collaborativeinquiry learning environment?

2. Did the teachers use discourse strategies that are in accordance with Pomeroy’s agendasin order to create more inclusive learning conditions?

3. In what ways did the instructional means used by the teachers function as scaffoldingtools in order to create more effective and more inclusive learning conditions?

The research questions, combined with the adopted sociocultural principles, directed ourstudy to a discourse analysis-oriented research methodology. By examining empiricallysignificant examples of teacher-student linguistic interactions about science, we traced andanalyzed the ways in which science learning was carried out in these two multiculturalclassrooms.

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Research Design

Research Method

In the past two decades, the study of discourse, driven by sociocultural orientations, hasbecome an important theoretical perspective for those concerned with the study of learningin social settings (e.g., Hicks 1996; Gee 1999; Yerrick and Roth 2005).

By studying discursive activity within classrooms and other social settings, researchershave provided new insights into the complex and dynamic relationships among discourse,social practices, and learning (Gee and Green 1998).

In educational research, discursive analysis has been joined by studies exploring theways in which knowledge is socially constructed through classroom discourse in general (e.g., Barnes and Todd 1995; Kumpulainen and Wray 2002) and, more specifically, in sciencelearning (e.g., Lemke 1990; Mortimer and Scott 2003; Yerrick and Roth 2005; Kelly 2007;Kelly and Sezen 2010). Over the last few years, an increasing amount of discourse analysis-oriented research has focused on the examination of science teachers’ talk (e.g., Mortimerand Scott 2003; Roth 2010) and students’ talk respectively (e.g., Kittleson and Southerland2004; Shepardson and Britsch 2006).

As long as we support a discourse-oriented theory of learning, as described earlier, thenour research methodology should reflect our theory. Using a discourse analysis approach,we examined ways in which two teachers in a multicultural primary school of Athensfunction towards crossing cultural borders and establishing inquiry conditions duringscience lessons.

The Identity of the Research: Researchers, Teachers, Pupils

The work presented in this paper is part of a collaborative action research program whichwas carried out by two researchers and two teacher-researchers, and which lasted oneschool year (2008–2009). The teacher-researchers, under the guidance and with thecooperation of the researchers, tried to implement more inclusive and collaborative inquirystrategies for multicultural learning contexts. The basic strategy to accomplish this goal wasto give the teachers a chance to reflect on their own “talk” during science lessons.

It should be noted that both researchers were primary school teachers; the first one has aPh.D. in science education and the second a Ph.D. in intercultural education.

The two teachers were selected because they were known as creditable instructors inscience teaching and because of their efforts to make curricular content accessible to allstudents. They had previously participated as teacher-researchers in another researchproject, a collaborative action project in which they analyzed their own discourse practicesduring science lessons (self-identifying citation). The reflective research experience of thesetwo teachers in science education issues prompted us, as researchers, to investigate the dailyteacher-student interactions in regard to science that facilitated student understanding, moreinclusive and collaborative inquiry conditions, and a smooth transcendence of migrantpupils’ cultural borders.

The overall research took place over a one-year-period in two 5th grade elementaryclassrooms of a Greek primary school in Athens, with 85% migrant pupils. In bothclassrooms, the students worked in groups. The learning situations in which the studentsworked were oriented to collaborative problem solving and inquiry tasks.

Tables 1 and 2 provide ethnic and gender distributions within the two classes studied.These tables identify the percentages of nationalities represented in each class. The pupils in

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these classes are aged 10–11 years (5th grade pupils). As the tables show: a) 80% of thestudents in both classes speak Greek as a second language; b) in both classrooms, themajority of the students are from Albania; c) 45 out of 48 pupils come from Europeancountries, which means that they or their parents come from educational systems that areexposed to western science culture, as is the Greek educational system. It also means that,for them, the main obstacle for the crossing of science cultural borders is the “foreign”Greek language. The remaining 3 pupils come Africa, which means that their culture differsfrom the European culture of their classmates. On this occasion apart from the obstacle oflanguage a teacher should implement suitable strategies to bridge pupils’ cultures withschool science culture.

Data Selection

Data were collected through field notes, videos of the teachers’ lessons (these data werecollected by the researchers), student protocols and the teachers’ reflective diaries. Overall,we collected and transcribed 12 videotaped lessons (6 for each teacher), which we thendivided into smaller activity instances.

The data for this paper concern the same lesson that both teachers taught (2 videotapedlessons), entitled: “Evaporation of Liquids”. Our choice to analyze in depth two teachingsequences of the same lesson and examples of the teacher-student linguistic interactionsaims to bring to light the strategies and linguistic repertoires which the two experiencedteachers used in order to create inclusive learning conditions during science lessons.

During the lesson of “Evaporation of Liquids”, students had at their disposal work sheetswith activities suitable for collaborative learning. Furthermore, the teachers used animationas scaffolding tools to make “visible” the phenomenon and a film on the water cycle to givestudents the opportunity to speak the language of science when referring to procedures suchas evaporation, condensation, energy, etc.

Table 1 Pupil population in class 1

Country of origin Number of pupils Percentage Boys Girls

Greece 4 17% 1 3

Nigeria 1 4,5% 1 –

Poland 2 9% 1 1

Albania 15 65% 9 6

Cyprus 1 4,5% 1 –

Total 23 100% 13 10

Table 2 Pupil population in class 2

Country of origin Number of pupils Percentage Boys Girls

Greece 5 20% 3 2

Egypt 2 8% 1 1

Poland 3 12% 1 2

Albania 13 52% 7 6

Romania 2 8% – 2

Total 25 100% 12 13

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Research Findings and Discussion

Further on, we present the research data (excerpts of the teacher-student interactions) inthree subtopics, according to the three research questions, interspersing the data with ourresearch findings as we discuss them.

Teachers’ Strategies Promoting Collaborative Inquiry

In this section, we study representative episodes and discuss what strategies the teachersused to promote conditions that establish a learning environment that utilizes collaborativeinquiry, a prerequisite for our theoretical context to achieve inclusive learning conditions,especially in multicultural science learning environments.

Episode 1: Elicitation and Recording of the Pupils’ Views

Episode 1 concerns an excerpt of a classroom dialogue that took place in the initial phase of thelesson. In this episode, the teacher (1) is using the phenomenon of the dried blackboard (Teacher:Do we often wipe off the blackboard with a wet sponge?) and based on the concreteexperiences of his pupils try to elicit their views concerning the phenomenon of evaporation.

Excerpt 1

1 Teacher (T): Do we often clean the blackboard with a wet sponge? [The teacher cleans the blackboard ashe speaks.]

2 Pupils (Ps): Yes.

3 T: What happens, when I clean the blackboard with the wet sponge? What do you observe?

4 Pupil (P): When the sponge is wet... it erases the board better.

5 T: The blackboard became too wet...but what has happened? Is it still too wet?

6 Ps: Yes.

7 T: Or is it beginning to dry little by little?

8 P: Yes. It is beginning to dry little by little.

9 T: So the wet blackboard is beginning to dry. What is happening to the water that was on the blackboard?

10 P: It’s evaporating.

11 T: Very good. Now, in groups of two, I want you first to discuss and then to write down on your worksheethow you interpret this phenomenon—as if you were scientists. That is to say: what do you think about it?What is happening?

12 [The pupils discuss among themselves.]

13 T: You have two more minutes.

In Excerpt 1, the teacher tries to elicit the pupils’ views on evaporation and asks them(communicative contribution [cc] 11) to interpret the phenomenon in groups, by using their own“scientific” language (T: Very good. Now, in groups of two, I want you first to discuss and then towrite down on your worksheet how you interpret this phenomenon—as if you were scientists.That is to say: what do you think about it? What is happening?). According to oursocioculturally-oriented collaborative inquiry context, the teacher invites pupils to think and toact as members of a scientific community and so to use the appropriate language. Also,according to our context, this elicitation of pupils’ ideas is the first step towards achieving theteacher’s aim to guide the students to perceive the difference between their everyday knowledgeon the topic of evaporation and the scientific disciplinary one (Reveles et al. 2008), while at thesame time establishing a learning environment that utilizes collaborative inquiry.

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By asking suitable questions, the teacher guides the pupils to make a contextual shiftfrom their everyday language of communicative contributions 4 and 8 (cc 4—P: When thesponge is wet... it cleans the board better. cc 8—P: Yes. It is beginning to dry little bylittle.), to the scientific one of communicative contribution 10 (cc 10—P: It hasevaporated.). In the terminology of the sociocultural approach, this is a process of guidedparticipation. In this short episode we see how a teacher can help pupils move between theirlife-world culture (cc 4) and the culture of science (cc 10), achieving an instructionalcongruence and possibly facilitating a smoother cultural border crossing (Aikenhead 1996).

According to our field notes, during the activity, and particularly during the groupdiscussion, the teacher followed and implemented strategies in accordance with our desirablecollaborative inquiry context. The teacher went around the groups, discussing with pupils andgiving explanations to those who asked. He also invited pupils to state their opinions, which hethen used as a basis for an open dialogue in the classroom (a technique compatible withPomeroy’s 4th agenda concerning the inclusion of the communicative contributions of thosegenerally omitted). This episode indicates that our approach to give teacher-researchers thechance to reflect on their own “talks” during science lessons gradually lead them to implementculturally sensitive communicative actions and to give proper attention to pupils’ views.

Episode 2: Supporting Cooperation and Inquiry

Episode 2 concerns an excerpt of a classroom dialogue that took place during the phase ofthe lesson in which the pupil groups carried out inquiring activities on evaporation. In thisepisode, the teacher (2) asks groups to suggest places inside the classroom with a highertemperature in order to inquire whether evaporation depends on temperature.

Excerpt 2

1 T: In these two dishes I would like you to put the same quantity of water and think of how you can increasethe temperature in one of them. I suggest we put the first dish on the desk.Where will you put the other dishin order to increase its temperature? Can you continue the experiment? I want you to think like scientists.

2 P: We’ll put it in the air...

3 T: In the air? The temperature in the air... isn’t it roughly the same? Think of a point in the classroomwhere the temperature may be different.

4 P: By the window.

5 T: Discuss it for a couple of minutes and then you will state an opinion. Be prepared to share youropinions with the class.

6 [The pupils discuss among themselves.]

7 T: What about this group? Would you like to tell us your opinion?

8 P: By the window or on the radiator.

9 T: Why the window?

10 P: Because there’s sunshine and it is warmer.

11 P: Or under the light bulb.

12 T: Do the other groups agree?

13 Ps: We agree.

14 T: Look at your ideas. They’re excellent! We can turn on the light and put the dish under the bulb. Whereelse can we put it?

15 P: On the radiator.

16 T: OK, I put the first dish here [on a desk]... and the other dish there [on a desk close to the radiator].Later on, we’ll see what happens.

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From the above excerpt we can infer that the teacher (2) implements a series of suitablestrategies in order to promote collaborative inquiry conditions during the science lesson.

A first strategy is for the teacher to give the pupil groups enough time to discuss the issue andto facilitate cooperation between the pupils by reminding them of the norms of participation (cc5—T: Discuss it for a couple of minutes and then you will state an opinion. Be prepared toshare your opinions with the class.). Through this communicative action, the teacher tries toinvolve all the members of the groups in the collaborative inquiry process. All the participantshave the privilege of contributing to this process, all contributions are important and allvoices should be respected. This strategy had another important impact, since it created theconditions for pupils to participate in hybrid science-oriented dialogues or in sciencelanguage games, i.e., to articulate in their own words the “language” of science and thusparticipate in gradually evolving school science discourses and practices.

A second strategy is for the teacher to call upon the pupils to think like scientists (cc 1—T: I want you to think like scientists.). This is a strategy of explicitly teaching the contextualshift, which is very important, especially in a multicultural learning setting (Reveles et al.2008). The teacher invites pupils to change their way of thinking, acting and speakingaccording to a school science context.

A third strategy is for the teacher to try to involve the pupils in meaningful collaborativeactivities (cc 5—T: Discuss it for a couple of minutes and then you will state an opinion... cc14—T: Look at your ideas. They’re excellent! We can turn on the light and put the dish underthe bulb. Where else can we put it?). This strategy is a fundamental educational principle of asocioculturally-oriented teaching approach. As Wells and Claxton (2002) mention, “in thecourse of working together towards shared goals and of finding solutions to the problemsencountered in the process, participants contribute differentially from their existing expertiseand take over and transform for their own use the skills, values and dispositions that they findeffective in the contributions of others”. Within this context, the teacher tries to get all thegroups to participate in the discussion by pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of agroup’s co-constructed argument (cc 7—T: What about this group? Would you like to tell usyour opinion? cc 12—T: Do the other groups agree? cc 13—Ps: We agree. cc 14—T: Look atyour ideas, they’re excellent). By guiding the learning process in the method mentionedabove (by trying to elicit from the pupils different ways of experimenting) the teachercommunicates to the pupils that he values their intuition and imagination; at the same time, heindicates that there is no single “scientific method” and presents a more realistic image on thenature of science (a strategy that is in accordance with Coelho’s statements).

A fourth strategy is for the teacher to give the pupils the initiative and to call on them toinquire, appropriately guiding them throughout episode 2 (cc 1—T: Can you continue theexperiment? cc 9—T: Why the window? cc 11—P: Or under the light bulb. cc 12—T: Do theother groups agree?). In episode 2 we see how the teacher implements the principle of guidedparticipation in order to involve pupils in the process of inquiry. As a result, pupils makesuggestions (cc 8—P: By the window or on the radiator. cc 11—P: Or under the light bulb.)and finally carry out their own experiments concerning the relation of evaporation andenvironmental temperature.

The study’s first question was to examine what strategies the teachers used to promoteconditions favorable to establishing a collaborative inquiry-oriented learning environment.Episodes 1 and 2, presented and discussed above, reveal that the teachers used a variety ofstrategies to promote collaborative inquiry-oriented learning conditions. The teachers usedmany different methods to encourage communication, support continued learning andengage pupils in exploring and investigating the phenomenon of evaporation (e.g., theygave plenty of time to the groups of pupils, called on pupils to think like scientists,

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facilitated the pupils’ participation in discussions, facilitated cooperation among the pupilsby reminding them of the norms of participation, etc.). These strategies are of fundamentalimportance in establishing environments that promote collaborative inquiry-orientedlearning conditions, especially in multicultural classrooms, and help pupils in a smoothercrossing of cultural borders during science lessons. In the words of Rosebery et al. (1992),the teachers gave all pupils (with or without a multicultural background) the chance to learnhow to use the language, to think and to act as members of a scientific community.

Teachers’ Discourse Strategies in Accordance with Pomeroy’s Research Agendas

In this section, we will study representative episodes and discuss what discourse practicesthe teachers implemented to facilitate the cultural border crossing of pupils, especiallymigrant pupils, using Pomeroy’s research agendas as the framework for our analysis.

Episode 3: Bridging Between Colloquial and Scientific Language, and Teaching Studentsto Talk Science

Episode 3 concerns an excerpt of a dialogue that took place during an experiment illustrated inFig. 1 (the experiment’s research question was: Does evaporation depend on the type of liquid?).

Pupils, having at their disposal suitable materials (a simple balance and two papernapkins) and two liquids (water and pure alcohol), were asked to work collaboratively andto inquire whether the evaporation rate depends on the type of liquid. In the followingexcerpt, the teacher (1), having posed the question (T: What do you believe will happen [inthe next experiment] after about 10 min?), went around the groups, discussing with thepupils their views and trying to bridge their colloquial language with scientific language.

Excerpt 3

1 T: What do you believe will happen [in the next experiment] after about 10 min? First, discuss youropinions among yourselves and then write them down.

2 P: The balance will spoil.

3 T: Discuss it with your group and then write it down.

4 [The teacher goes around the groups, discussing with the pupils.]

5 T: What’s your opinion? Did you all discuss the issue?

6 P: The napkin will dry and go up.

7 T: What would a scientist say instead of “it will dry”?

8 P: “It will evaporate”.

9 T: What will evaporate?

10 Ps: The alcohol.

11 T: Very good. How else can we say “the balance will spoil”? How do you think a physicist would say it?

12 P: “The balance will break.”

13 T: Can we say it differently? Can we use another word instead of “break”?

14 P: ...

15 T: This word starts with “Dis...”

16 P: ...

17 T: “Disturbed” is the word. Have you ever heard this word?

18 Ps: Yes.

19 T: So then, “The balance will be disturbed”.

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This excerpt is a representative example of the teacher’s effort to bridge pupils’ colloquialand scientific language, by using suitable communicative actions (cc 7—What would ascientist say instead of “it will dry”? cc 11—How else can we say “the balance will spoil”?).

We will start the analysis of this learning episode by making a reference to the type ofactivity that the teacher (1) introduced. In this activity, as we can see in Fig. 1, pupils are askedto construct a simple balance using ordinary, everyday materials. Connecting science tostudents’ everyday life experiences is an important theme in science education discourse.There is value in using everyday materials found in the classroom, such as plastic rulers(instead of a laboratory balance), to help link scientific understanding to students’ everydaylives. In fact, experimentation using ordinary materials was the overall choice of both theteacher-researchers in order to implement the science curriculum in the context of pupils’lives (Pomeroy’s Agenda 2). Significantly, by including “ordinary science” materials inscience lessons, the teachers tried to communicate to their pupils the meaning that science isfor all and not only for the experts, and that science can be done anywhere and not only in alaboratory. As Coelho points out (1998), by implementing such a science curriculum, theteachers make an effort in the direction of a critical awareness of “scientific racism”.

In Excerpt 3, according to Pomeroy’s Agenda 8 (1994), by initiating the discussion-communicative action 1 (T: What do you believe will happen after about 10 min? First,discuss your opinions among yourselves and then write them down.), the teacher tries to createbridges between the scientific content and the pupils’ beliefs about evaporation, encouragingthe pupils to cross cultural borders into school science. In addition, by suitably guiding thediscussion, the teacher helps pupils to make links between colloquial and scientific language oftheir own accord (cc 6—P: The napkin will dry and go up. cc 8—P: “It will evaporate”.).

In Excerpt 3, we can trace suitable teaching strategies for diverse learners (Pomeroy’s Agenda3). The teacher assists pupils in combining ideas and improving interactions with theirschoolmates. For example, in communicative action 1 (T: First, discuss your opinions amongyourselves and then write them down.), the teacher asks pupils to discuss their opinions andinvites all pupils to contribute to the discussion. By contributing a series of communicativeactions, the teacher tries to introduce and reinforce subject-specific concepts and language; inother words, to make links between colloquial and scientific language and to teach students totalk science (cc 11—T: How else can we say “the balance will spoil”? How do you think aphysicist would say it? cc 12—P: “The balance will break.” cc 13—T: Can we say itdifferently? Can we use another word instead of “break”? cc 17—T: “Disturbed” is the word.Have you ever heard this word?). The way that the teacher speaks to the pupils indicates a

Fig. 1 Does evaporation dependon the type of liquid?

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respect for their colloquial language (T: Can we say it differently? Can we use another wordinstead of “break”?), and an awareness of the fact that it is important to help pupils, especiallymigrant pupils, to cross smoothly from their “world” to the “world of science”.

Furthermore, the teacher’s strategy of scaffolding students’ learning, for example incommunicative contribution 7 (T: What would a scientist say instead of “it will dry”? P:“It will evaporate”.), is related to Pomeroy’s Agenda 6 (science for language minoritystudents including non-standard native speakers). At first, instead of the word “evaporate”(a “foreign” word to most of the migrant pupils), the pupils used the phrase “will dry”. Byasking suitable questions, the teacher elicited from the pupils the scientific word“evaporate”, as well as the phrase “the balance will spoil”.

Finally, in Excerpt 3, we trace the teacher’s communicative actions which are oriented to theinclusion of the contributions of those pupils who are generally omitted and of questions thatprivilege pupils’meaning (Pomeroy’s Agenda 4). For example, with communicative contribution5 (T: What’s your opinion? Did you all discuss the issue?), the teacher invited all the pupils tocontribute in the group discussion and gave them the chance to speak in their own language(which is very important, especially for migrant pupils) about the phenomenon of evaporationand, possibly, to develop academic identities more commensurate with science learning.

Episode 4: Writing a Conclusion

In Excerpt 4 we can see the teacher’s (1) guidance in the context of a class discussion inorder for the pupils to arrive at a well informed and suitable scientific conclusion. Thisconclusion concerned the experiment we described in episode 3.

Excerpt 4

1 T: So, what will you write on your worksheet?

2 P: ...

3 T: “The pure alcohol that we dripped on the napkin”... What happened to it? Can you help me out?

4 P: It evaporated.

5 T: Do you want to add a couple more words in order to describe it a little better? Did it evaporate atonce? What else can we add? How did it evaporate? Automatically? Immediately?

6 Ps: No.

7 T: What word can we add here?

8 P: Slowly.

9 T: So, “the pure alcohol evaporated slowly... and turned from...” from what?

10 P: From a liquid...

11 T: Very good. “From a liquid into...”

12 Ps: Into a solid.

13 T: Not into a solid... We said that it goes into the atmosphere. So, it turns into... What?

14 Ps: Into gas.

15 T: Excellent. “It turns from liquid into gas”. Scientists, of course, would say it a little differently: “Froma liquid condition into a gas condition”...but this is for older pupils. Of course it doesn’t hurt to discussit here. In the end, what happens with the balance?

16 P: It spoils.

17 P: It is disturbed.

18 T: It is disturbed, I agree... However, in brackets you can alsowrite theword you said (spoils), that you knowbetter.

19 P: It spoils.

20 T: That’s it. Excellent!

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In Excerpt 4, we can see how the teacher guided his pupils to make their individual findingspublic to the whole class (which is very important, especially for a classroomwith multiculturalcharacteristics) and also to construct a shared understanding of the specific investigation. Forexample, with communicative action 5 (T: Do you want to add a couple more words in orderto describe it a little better? Did it evaporate at once? What else can we add? How did itevaporate? Automatically? Immediately?), the teacher tries to help the pupils (especiallymigrant pupils) to shape a more adequate conclusion, in terms of school science. We cantrace, in this entire excerpt (e.g., cc 10—P: From a liquid... cc 11—T: Very good. “From aliquid into...” cc 12—Ps: Into a solid.), the continuous effort of the teacher to create theconditions for a school science for all pupils, including non-standard Greek speakers(Pomeroy’s Agenda 6).

It is worth noting that in the final conclusion (cc 18—T: It is disturbed, I agree... However, inbrackets you can also write the word you said (spoils), that you know better.), the teacheradvises the pupils to write the more suitable mathematical and scientific word “disturbed”, butalso their more personal word “spoils”, making explicit his intention to respect and recognizetheir contributions as equally important as the scientific ones, and to create bridges between thescientific content and pupils’ everyday language (Pomeroy’s Agenda 8). Furthermore, webelieve that this strategy of bridging the colloquial language with the scientific one helps pupils,especially ethnic and linguistic minority ones, to be taught about the contextual shift (that is tosay, changing their ways of speaking in the context of school science in relation to the context ofeveryday life), something that could lead to school success.

During this episode—as is true of the entire lesson—the teacher made a sustained effortto avoid questions which required pupils to guess at the teacher’s meaning and invitedmany pupils in the context of the whole class to contribute to the shaping of the finalconclusion. These are culturally sensitive teaching strategies and suitable for sciencelearning environments with diverse learners (Pomeroy’s Agendas 3 & 4).

The study’s second question was to examine whether the teachers use discourse strategiesthat are in accordance with Pomeroy’s agendas in order to create more inclusive learningconditions. Overall, we would say that the teachers used a variety of culturally sensitive andinclusive strategies providing opportunities for pupils to talk and think with new scientificmeanings, individually, in groups and in class discussions (e.g., assisted pupils in combiningideas, checked on group progress, tried to involve all students in the discussion, introduced andreinforced subject-specific concepts and language, etc.). According to Hicks (1996), theteachers helped in the creation of diverse communicative spaces, in the emergence of hybriddialogues (e.g., T: In the end, what happens with the balance? P: It spoils; P: It isdisturbed.), in the creation of third spaces in which neither one of two different languageswas dominant (students’ colloquial language or the language of school science) but both weretranslated and negotiated according to the experiences taking place in the space (e.g., T:Excellent. “It turns from liquid into gas”. Scientists, of course, would say it a little differently:“From a liquid condition into a gas condition”...but this is for older pupils. Of course itdoesn’t hurt to discuss it here.). It is obvious that teachers gave their pupils the chance tospeak in their own colloquial language and the language of school science, to shift betweenthem, and gradually helped them to become acquainted with scientific terminology.

This successful use of culturally sensitive and inclusive teaching strategies (many of whichare compatible with Pomeroy’s agendas) can be characterized as instructional scaffolding. AsApplebee (1996) maintains, this strategy focuses on such characteristics as allowing pupilsroom to develop their own understanding, ensuring that activities support natural processes ofthought and language, and in turn helping students internalize a repertoire of effectivestrategies of (science) language and thought that they can use in new contexts.

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Instructional Means as Scaffolding Tools

In this section, we will study a representative episode and discuss in what ways theinstructional means functioned as scaffolding tools for the creation of more effective andmore inclusive learning conditions. In the lesson of “evaporation”, one of the teachers usedanimation and the other teacher a film about the water cycle as instructional means toscaffold pupils’ learning.

Episode 5: “We Put on ‘Magic’ Glasses”

Episode 5 concerns an excerpt of a dialogue that took place during a class discussionin which the teacher (1) used animation (Fig. 2) to make “visible” to pupils thephenomenon of evaporation and also to explain the process of evaporation at amicroscopic level (as the gradual change of state from liquid to gas that occurs at aliquid’s surface). In this discussion, the teacher asked pupils to put on their “magicglasses” in order to observe the motion of the particles of the liquid—i.e., of the water.

Excerpt 5

1 T: Imagine that these are molecules of water. Of course, such a quantity of water has innumerablemolecules. You can also imagine that you are wearing the “magic glasses” of a scientist, with whichyou can even see molecules. What do you think these red circles represent?

2 P: Molecules.

3 T: In reality, molecules are not red. Somebody made them red in the picture, in order to distinguishthem... What are the molecules doing in the picture?

4 P: They are moving.

5 T: In solids they are just moving a little, aren’t they?

6 P: Yes.

Fig. 2 Animation of the evapora-tion of a liquid

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7 T: Are they moving the same in liquids?

8 P: No, in liquids they are moving faster.

9 T: What about gases?

10 P: In gases, they are moving very fast.

11 T: Which of these molecules, judging by the picture, is “escaping” from the liquid and what does it seemto be doing?

12 P: That one, over there... its flying... it’s going up.

13 T: So we observe that molecules are escaping from the surface and not from the entire volume of the liquid.

14 P: Yes. It’s evaporating from the surface of the liquid.

15 T: Therefore, at this moment, while it is liquid...it’s turning into...what?

16 P: Gas.

17 T: It becomes vapor, as you said before. What does it need, though, for this transformation?

18 P: Hot.

19 P: Heat.

20 T: Well done! It needs heat. Can you see a button here that says “increase”? If I increase the temperature,what do you think will happen?

21 P: It will evaporate faster.

22 T: What will evaporate? We have to say it.

23 P: It will evaporate more.

24 T: Can we use another word instead of “faster”?

25 P: At a larger pace.

26 P: With bigger force.

27 T: Which pace do you mean...? Would you like to see this experiment?

28 P: Yes.

In this excerpt we can see how the teacher used animation in order to help pupils tounderstand in more depth the phenomenon of evaporation. At the beginning of thediscussion, the teacher tried to make explicit some features that characterize animation inorder to avoid the creation of misconceptions and misunderstandings (cc1—T: What do youthink that these red circles represent? cc 2—P: Molecules. cc 3—T: In reality, molecules arenot red. Somebody made them red in the picture, in order to distinguish them...).

Then, the teacher asked the pupils to observe the motion of the molecules and guided themto single out the ones that seem to be escaping from the volume of the liquid (cc 11—T: Whichof these molecules, judging by the picture, is “escaping” from the liquid and what does itseem to be doing?). In this way, the teacher appropriately guides the discussion, involving thepupils in a discourse in which its content moves from the here-and-now of everyday views(see also the balance in Excerpt 1) to the generally applicable statements of science (cc 14—P: Yes. It’s evaporating from the surface of the liquid. cc 16—P: Gas. cc19—P: Heat. cc 21—P.: It will evaporate faster.).

Furthermore, we can see that the use of animation not only helps to better describe thephenomenon of evaporation, but also gives the teacher the chance to initiate a discussionconcerning a more concrete explanation of the evaporation process (cc 17—T: It becomesvapor, as you said before. What does it need, though, for this transformation? cc 18—P.:Hot. cc 19—P.: Heat. cc 20—T.: Well done! It needs heat.).

We see, in Excerpt 5, how animation can be exploited by the teacher during the learningprocess to introduce and develop the scientific story, making the scientific meaningavailable on the social plane of the classroom (Mortimer and Scott 2003), helping pupils tounderstand in more depth the phenomenon of evaporation. Creating the proper environmentis a necessary condition for maintaining a collaborative inquiry classroom. An inquiry

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classroom may be very active and filled with materials. It may be filled with pupils havingconversations about scientific phenomena, as in the first five episodes we presented, or itmay be filled with suitable teaching aids such as the use of animation that is related toepisode 5. The use of animation as a scaffolding tool is especially important for migrantpupils who speak Greek as a second language and face many difficulties in a classroom inwhich the basic means of communication is the oral and written Greek language. Visual andother multimodal means like animation can help pupils move effectively between theireveryday culture and science culture (Pomeroy’s Agenda 8: effective teaching activitieswhich create bridges between the scientific content and pupils’ beliefs and preconceptionsof science) and assist them in a smoother crossing of cultural borders.

The teacher also tried to diversify and demystify the image of scientists, somethingcompatible both with Pomeroy’s agendas (1994) and Coelho’s (1998) statements. In thecontext of the negotiation of the animation activity concerning the phenomenon ofevaporation, while the teacher was speaking about the motion of molecules (and theirsmaller parts, atoms), he seized the chance to talk about an episode from the history ofscience in order to emphasize the interdependence of science and the demystification ofstereotypical images of science. By using the example of Rutherford, he explained to pupilsthe difficulties that young scientists sometimes face when they are not well known in theirfield, even though later on their pioneer work may prove of great importance and contributeto major innovations or discoveries that change the whole world. The communicativecontribution of the teacher, concerning this historical episode, is the following:

This narration of a historical episode communicates to the pupils the meaning thatscientists are not infallible and helps them develop critical awareness, while also explainingto them that many of the greatest discoveries did not come about as the result of onescientist’s independent work. In an extended inference, this historical episode communi-cates the meaning that different perspectives contribute to science.

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Overall, the two teachers in our survey tried to broaden the traditional concepts ofscience and use technology in order to offer a more inclusive curriculum which isunderstandable and attractive to migrant pupils.

Conclusions

Our findings reveal that both teachers used suitable cross-border strategies (strategiesconcerning the establishment of a collaborative inquiry learning environment, strategies thatwere in accordance with a cross-border pedagogy) to help students cross smoothly fromtheir “world” to the “world of science”. The teachers successfully elicited the pupils’ ideasabout phenomena and engaged them in the expression and justification of their intuitiveexplanations. They guided the pupils in making their individual findings public and inconstructing a shared understanding of their investigations, while also introducing anacademic language which provided congruence with pupils’ literacy and culturalbackgrounds. Finally, they explicitly taught the contextual shift in order to help pupilsmake the transition from their life-world culture to the culture of school science.

We could say that the two teacher-researchers worked closely with the researchers tofacilitate the pupils’ crossing of cross-cultural boundaries, by using the following socio-cultural principles and strategies:

◦ Inquiry, as the organizing principle of curricular activities.◦ Establishing a collaborative community.◦ Using discursive strategies to scaffold students’ learning.◦ Designing activities that bridge colloquial and scientific language.

All of the above are suitable strategies for a teacher in order to promote collaborative inquiryconditions in her/his classroom. When they are appropriately implemented, all these strategiescould help pupils to cross cultural boundaries and make school science more meaningful andrelevant to them. We hold that these strategies are of fundamental importance in establishingenvironments that promote collaborative inquiry learning conditions, especially inmulticulturalclassrooms, and help pupils with a smoother cultural border crossing during science lessons.

A very crucial key to these teachers’ expertise in implementing culturally sensitive andinclusive strategies was their previous participation in a collaborative action research inwhich they analyzed their own discourse practices during science lessons. Consequently, animportant conclusion of this research is that the use of discourse analysis tools by theteachers in an earlier project functioned not only as research but also as training andreflection on praxis tools and helped them to gradually transform their science teachingpractices. The discourse analysis tools provided the teachers with a meta-didactic awarenessof the learning and teaching processes.

Our findings indicate that the teachers who trained in a reflective and participatory modecan introduce into their science classrooms conversations that may share a number ofcharacteristics, as Applebee (1996: 126) and others point out, such as:

◦ they center on language episodes of high quality◦ contain enough material to sustain extended discussion◦ focus on a set of interrelated experiences and ideas◦ learning activities are carried out in a manner that help students enter intoconversation, and finally

◦ use techniques compatible with Pomeroy’s agendas.

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Α question that emerges from our analysis and to which we seek an answer is: How canGreek teachers implement such culturally sensitive and inclusive teaching strategies? Theteacher-researchers that participated in the collaborative action research had the meta-didactical awareness to implement these strategies. How can this level of expertise beachieved by the majority of Greek teachers? It is obvious that much more has to be done inthe Greek educational system concerning pre-service and in-service training about teachingand learning science in a multicultural context in order for teachers to function ascommunicators, story makers, interpreters and cultural border brokers. More specificallyour proposal is that Greek teachers should be engaged in collaborative action researchtraining projects, like the one we followed in this research. Teachers should be given thechance to reflect on their own discourse and practices in order to become acquainted withrepertoires suitable for creating more collaborative conditions and for setting up inclusivelearning conditions in their science lessons.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlierdrafts of this paper.

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