Language Views for Scientific Sensemaking Matter: A Synthesis of Research on Multilingual Students’ Experiences with Science Practices Through a Translanguaging Lens

Abstract

This synthesis examines recent science education research on multilingual students’ experiences with language-rich science practices. Adopting a translanguaging lens, we explore how researchers’ language conceptualizations impact the science practices they study and the ways multilingual students are positioned. This analysis helps us understand the extent to which recent research is disrupting, or sustaining, minoritizing narratives about multilingual students and how they sensemake in science. Based on our findings, we suggest researchers: (1) reflect upon and expand their views of language, which will enable the field to develop more nuanced understandings of how language use across linguistic and multimodal resources permeates all science practices, and (2) consider how to expand multilingual students’ language repertoires for sensemaking while also valuing students’ existing language resources and practices.

Science education with multilingual learners: Equity as access and equity as transformation

“…Findings from an analysis of course artifacts and interviews indicated that preservice teachers expressed relatively narrow understandings of language, science, and their integration (González‐Howard et al, 2022). For example, they conceived of language in terms of named languages with rigidly constructed boundaries (e.g., “Spanish” vs. “English”), in contrast with the fluid conceptualization of translanguaging (García & Li, 2014).…”

“…This is consistent with a finding of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine (2022) report that their fourth approach to equity—“seeing science and engineering as part of justice movements” (p. 25)—was significantly underrepresented in the literature. Moreover, research on preservice teacher preparation has pointed to the difficulty faced by teachers, many of whom do not share the cultural backgrounds of their students, in “identifying and integrating [MLs'] funds of knowledge into their instruction” (Rutt et al, 2021, p. 656), although this difficulty is not exclusive to English‐monolingual teachers (e.g., González‐Howard et al, 2022). Future research should leverage this unprecedented moment in which societal challenges loom large (e.g., COVID‐19, climate change) to support teachers in eliciting and cultivating MLs' rich knowledge and experiences related to these challenges (Calabrese Barton, Greenberg, Turner et al, 2021; Lee & Campbell, 2020; Lee & Grapin, 2022).…”

“…Building on their earlier research focused on teacher learning to facilitate scientific argumentation with MLs (González‐Howard & McNeill, 2016; González‐Howard et al, 2015, 2017), González‐Howard and colleagues are currently carrying out a 5‐year project supported by an NSF CAREER grant to explore how preservice teachers learn to support MLs' scientific sense‐making and engagement in science practices through a translanguaging lens (Andersen et al, 2022; González‐Howard et al, 2022; González‐Howard & Suárez, 2021; Kang & González‐Howard, 2022). In parallel with Ryu's approach of interviewing youth to inform the design of her afterschool program (described as part of “Learning” above), González‐Howard and colleagues began their project by exploring preservice teachers' current understandings of language, science, and their integration.…”

“…Finally, the preservice teachers saw a role for language in certain science practices (e.g., argue, explain) but less so in others, and they mainly emphasized the contributions of linguistic modalities (listening, reading, speaking, writing) to scientific sense‐making, with less attention to other semiotic resources (e.g., gesture, drawing). One bright spot was that preservice teachers, many of whom were multilingual themselves, reflected on how their own science learning experiences could have been more linguistically sustaining, for example, by expanding beyond, in one teacher's words, science “always [done] through the standard English academic language” (González‐Howard et al, 2022). The researchers concluded that, without opportunities to critically reflect on their understandings of language, science, and the integration of the two, preservice teachers would likely engage MLs in science in limited and limiting ways (González‐Howard et al, 2022).…”

“…One bright spot was that preservice teachers, many of whom were multilingual themselves, reflected on how their own science learning experiences could have been more linguistically sustaining, for example, by expanding beyond, in one teacher's words, science “always [done] through the standard English academic language” (González‐Howard et al, 2022). The researchers concluded that, without opportunities to critically reflect on their understandings of language, science, and the integration of the two, preservice teachers would likely engage MLs in science in limited and limiting ways (González‐Howard et al, 2022). In the next phase of their research, based on the understandings that preservice teachers expressed in the initial phase, González‐Howard and colleagues are revising various aspects of the science methods course to promote preservice teachers' more expansive understandings and associated pedagogies.…”