Search for: All records

Research in science education with multilingual learners (MLs) has expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion can be situated within a larger dialogue about what it means to provide minoritized students with an equitable education. Whereas some conceptions of equity focus on ensuring all students have access to the knowledge, practices, and language normatively valued in K‐12 schools (equity as access), increasingly prominent conceptions focus on transforming those knowledge, practices, and language in ways that center minoritized students and their communities (equity as transformation). In this article, we argue that conceptions of equity provide a useful lens for understanding emerging research in science education with MLs and for charting a research agenda. We begin by tracing how conceptions of equity have evolved in parallel across STEM and multilingual education. Then, we provide an overview of recent developments from demographic, theoretical, and policy perspectives. In the context of these developments, we provide a conceptual synthesis of emerging research by our team of early‐career scholars in three areas: (a) learning, (b) assessment, and (c) teacher education. Within each area, we unpack the research efforts in terms of how they attend to equity as access while pushing toward equity as transformation. Finally, we propose a research agenda for science education with MLs that builds on and extends these efforts. We close by offering recommendations for making this research agenda coherent and impactful: (a) being explicit about our conceptions of equity, (b) paying attention to the interplay of structure and agency, and (c) promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. 

Previous research has established that embodied modeling (role-playing agents in a system) can support learning about complexity. Separately, research has demonstrated that increasing the multimodal resources available to students can support sensemaking, particularly for students classified as English Learners. This study bridges these two bodies of research to consider how embodied models can strengthen an interconnected system of multimodal models created by a classroom. We explore how iteratively refining embodied modeling activities strengthened connections to other models, real-world phenomena, and multimodal representations. Through design-based research in a sixth grade classroom studying ecosystems, we refined embodied modeling activities initially conceived as supports for computational thinking and modeling. Across three iterative cycles, we illustrate how the conceptual and epistemic relationship between the computational and embodied model shifted, and we analyze how these shifts shaped opportunities for learning and participation by: (1) recognizing each student’s perspectives as critical for making sense of the model, (2) encouraging students to question and modify the “code” for the model, and (3) leveraging multimodal resources, including graphs, gestures, and student-generated language, for meaning-making. Through these shifts, the embodied model became a full-fledged component of the classroom’s model system and created more equitable opportunities for learning and participation.