There are many ways to understand the gap in science learning and achievement separating low‐income, ethnic minority and linguistic minority children from more economically privileged students. In this article we offer our perspective. First, we discuss in broad strokes how the relationship between everyday and scientific knowledge and ways of knowing has been conceptualized in the field of science education research. We consider two dominant perspectives on this question, one which views the relationship as fundamentally discontinuous and the other which views it as fundamentally continuous. We locate our own work within the latter tradition and propose a framework for understanding the everyday sense‐making practices of students from diverse communities as an intellectual resource in science learning and teaching. Two case studies follow in which we elaborate this point of view through analysis of Haitian American and Latino students' talk and activity as they work to understand metamorphosis and experimentation, respectively. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this new conceptualization for research on science learning and teaching. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 529–552, 2001

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In this article we address questions raised by the research methods used in teacher research by exploring a particular approach to teacher research. This approach is based in teachers’ concerns with underachieving children, particularly those who come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. It grows out of the work of the Brookline Teacher Research Seminar (BTRS), the Chèche Konnen Center (CKC), and the Prospect Center and Archives (Prospect). We report on a conference where experienced teacher researchers from these groups met with newcomers to explore classroom data together. Our goal is to describe what the experienced practitioners had to say to the newcomers.

Teachers often learn techniques to manage the behaviors of the children in their classrooms with the assumption that those techniques are universal, rather than culturally based. In this article,Cynthia Ballenger shares her process of coming to understand the cultural assumptions that lie at the heart of effectively managing her class of four-year-old Haitian children. Through multiple"conversations" with a teacher-researcher group, with Haitian teachers and parents in a daycare center, and through her work with Haitian teachers in a child development class, Ballenger learns about Haitian cultural ways and queries the assumptions that shape her own experience as a North American teacher. Her story demonstrates a model of teacher reflection on both theory and practice that can illuminate the practices of other teachers who encounter children of differing cultural, racial, or class backgrounds.

In this article we address questions raised by the research methods used in teacher research by exploring a particular approach to teacher research. This approach is based in teachers’ concerns with underachieving children, particularly those who come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. It grows out of the work of the Brookline Teacher Research Seminar (BTRS), the Chèche Konnen Center (CKC), and the Prospect Center and Archives (Prospect). We report on a conference where experienced teacher researchers from these groups met with newcomers to explore classroom data together. Our goal is to describe what the experienced practitioners had to say to the newcomers.