Student´s access to communication space in the science classroom

Abstract

This article is about communication in the classroom when science is on the timetable. The text is partly based on previously published results from the SONAT project, which demonstrated to what extent boys and girls choose to respond to closed or open questions from the teacher. Based on excerpts from the video-documented teaching situations, the way in which students can be positioned as knowledgeable or ignorant, in the context of science communication in science lessons during the final year of primary school, is exemplified. The results show that the type of questions posed by teachers affects the extent to which boys and girls choose to answer these questions, and consequently how they are positioned as being knowledgeable or ignorant.