Abstract
This is a single-case study of Teresa, a Latina secondary science teacher, who reflected on her experiences with her Latinx bilingual immigrant students and families and other science educators in a dialogic science learning community. Bearing witness to Teresa’s commitment and ongoing struggles for a more inclusive science teaching, we aimed to better understand the realistic potential of dialogic science learning communities in supporting teachers, like Teresa, in their effort to enact a science teaching inclusive of their students’ families and communities while functioning within the constraints of policy structures in schools. Grounded in a Freirean notion of dialogic education, this study used focus group interview, individual interview, and participation observation methods for data collection and analysis. Our findings indicated that Teresa’s participation in the professional learning program led her to restructure her work with her students and their families through dialogue-based learning interactions in the classroom and through actively working with parents as willing partners to engage students in science learning both in and beyond school. Our findings point to the power of dialogic science learning communities when working with bilingual immigrant students, in which teachers develop close companionship with students, families, and colleagues in ways that build teacher knowledge while also supporting teachers’ efforts navigating the challenges and tensions of teaching science in today’s conflicted sociopolitical context.
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Acknowledgement
In this paper, we use term bilingual immigrant students to refer to learners who speak languages other than English as well as English and who are in a dynamic process of developing competencies to be able to function in their home language and that of the school to emphasize the learners’ bilingual identities and positive characteristics of bilingualism as potential resources to be used at schools. When referring to immigrants, we consider both those who relocated to the USA from their country of usual residence for a long-term or permanent duration, and to those born in the USA but whose parents were born abroad. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number # DRL-1316398. Opinions and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Kirmaci, M., Buxton, C.A. & Allexsaht-Snider, M. A Latina science teacher becoming a dialogic educator: “I’m okay being hated because somebody has to be strong”. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 16, 1211–1237 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-020-10009-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-020-10009-5