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This article provides an introduction to what it means to adopt a view of literacy as social practice for science education. This view of literacy builds on the idea that reading and writing are best regarded as situated social practices involving text, not as a set of decontextualised and universally applicable skills. First, we draw on sociocultural perspectives on literacy to show how these perspectives inform our understanding of literacy when the context is science. Second, we use related research literature, mainly concerning the role of text in science education, to present a framework for approaching literacy in science classrooms from a sociocultural perspective. Finally, we discuss how a social view of literacy enables us to consider how literacy occurs in contexts relevant to a transcending science subject for scientific literacy.

In the Budding Science and Literacy project, we explored how working with an integrated inquiry-based science and literacy approach may challenge and support the teaching and learning of science at the classroom level. By studying the interrelationship between multiple learning modalities and phases of inquiry, we wished to illuminate possible dynamics between science inquiry and literacy in an integrated science approach. Six teachers and their students were recruited from a professional development course for the current classroom study. The teachers were to try out the Budding Science teaching model. This paper presents an overall video analysis of our material demonstrating variations and patterns of inquiry-based science and literacy activities. Our analysis revealed that multiple learning modalities (read it, write it, do it, and talk it) are used in the integrated approach; oral activities dominate. The inquiry phases shifted throughout the students' investigations, but the consolidating phases of discussion and communication were given less space. The data phase of inquiry seems essential as a driving force for engaging in science learning in consolidating situations. The multiple learning modalities were integrated in all inquiry phases, but to a greater extent in preparation and data. Our results indicate that literacy activities embedded in science inquiry provide support for teaching and learning science; however, the greatest challenge for teachers is to find the time and courage to exploit the discussion and communication phases to consolidate the students' conceptual learning.

This study investigates how teaching can support students' ability to apply rock identification by addressing scientific observation. In the context of geology education in Norway, we investigate two cases in which different approaches to teaching rock identification are carried out. Case A involves traditional teaching activities in one class of upper secondary school students, while Case B consists of teaching activities focusing on observation in a class of elementary school students. The study relies on analysis of video data using headcams from classroom activities and fieldwork. A year later, we asked the same students to apply rock identification to samples that were new to them. Results indicate that the teaching approach influenced the students' opportunities for developing an understanding of rock identification. The students in case A identified the samples by applying specific names of rocks and geological terminology, which led to errors and misconnections. Their application of rock identification can be characterized as name-dropping. By contrast, the students in case B identified rocks by noticing the patterns. They also explained theories of rock formation and geological terminology, thus demonstrating understanding. We discuss how the findings from case B can be translated into a tool for teaching rock identification.

This article addresses how methodological approaches relying on video can be included in literacy research to capture changing literacies. In addition to arguing why literacy is best studied in context, we provide empirical examples of how small, headmounted video cameras have been used in two different research projects that share a common aim: understanding the complex ways in which literacy is a part of school practices. The complexity of literacy practices taking place in classrooms, where students draw on a number of texts for a variety of purposes and different literacy discourses co-exist in the same setting, poses a serious challenge for those who wish to study literacy in educational settings. The methodology presented in this article is our attempt to meet this challenge. Our approach relies on using video equipment in innovative ways to capture multiple perspectives, involving research participants in the data collection process and the early stages of analysis, and analysing video data with digital coding software. These methods are combined to obtain a more systematic and detailed insight into the contexts in which literacy takes place.