Dialogical Argumentation and Reasoning in Elementary Science Classrooms

Science educators have come to recognize children's critical thinking and problem-solving skills as crucial ingredients of scientific literacy, say Kim and Roth, and so introduce argumentation early in science education. But too many try to teach children the structure of argumentation before they have any experience of it, which they compare to trying to teach someone the grammar of a language they do not speak. They offer a different approach based on dialogical relations, as the origin of internal dialogue (inner speech) and higher psychological functions. They follow scholars from many fields who have shown the primacy of social relations over mind. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Mijung Kim is an associate professor of science education at the University of Alberta. She has published several journal articles and books on inquiry-based teaching, science curriculum and research, including Issues and Challenges in Science Education Research (Springer, 2012) and East-Asian Primary Science Curricula (Springer, 2017).

Wolff-Michael Roth is Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. He has published over 60 books and nearly 500 peer-reviewed journal articles. He was awarded many outstanding research awards and received an honorary doctorate (University of Ioannina, Greece).