Abstract
This chapter illustrates and discusses how to produce valid knowledge about children’s concepts in science (understanding, learning, development). The discussion presented revolves around a theoretical presentation of communication and re-analyses of empirical data from published research on children’s reasoning and understanding. Through this analysis, the chapter examines how images of children’s competences in research are produced. The chapter also examines children’s understandings of the interview situation, showing how the ‘same situation’ is conceptualized differently by the interviewer and the child. In addition, the communicative framing and analysis process are critiqued in order to demonstrate how the research interview, as a common method of research into children’s science understanding, needs to be reconceptualised as a social practice, where the collaborative unfolding and meaningful exchange between interviewer and child is foregrounded.
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Pramling, N. (2015). Positioning Children in Research and the Implications for Our Images of Their Competences. In: A Cultural-Historical Study of Children Learning Science. Cultural Studies of Science Education, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9370-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9370-4_7
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