The importance of socio-cultural context for understanding students’ meaning making in the study of genetics

by Furberg, Anniken; Arnseth, Hans Christian

In this rejoinder to Ann Kindfield and Grady Venville’s comments on our article “Reconsidering conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective: Analyzing students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities,” we elaborate on some of the critical issues they raise. Their comments make apparent some of the crucial differences between a socio-cultural and a socio-cognitive approach towards conceptual change. We have selected some issues that are addressed, either implicitly or explicitly, in their comments. The main issues discussed are talk and interaction as data, the significance of context in interaction studies, the feasibility of generic claims in small-scale interaction studies, and the difference between studying students’ understanding of science concepts as opposed to studying the construction of meaning.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-008-9158-1
Online Date: 10/24/2008
Print publication date: 3/1/2009
View article on SpringerLink

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