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RESEARCH PRODUCT

On Participating in Communities of Practice

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This chapter examines the social practices of three classroom communities where pedagogy in the learning of science draws on the socio-cultural perspective. The pedagogical framework for science education, defined in this study as a participatory approach, views learning as a collective process of meaning-making situated in cultural contexts (e.g. Cole, 1996; Sfard, 1998; Wells; 1999). There are three focuses of interest, namely, the nature of role negotiation between the members of the learning community, the application of cultural tools in collective activity, and the processes of making meaning for a scientific phenomenon. The social practices of the science classroom communities are approached from two analytic dimensions: from the viewpoint of discourse moves and from the viewpoint of cultural focus.