Teaching in the tangle: the intertwined relational and epistemic activity of science classrooms
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Abstract
The field of science education has recently focused on students’ epistemic development, seeking to design learning environments that position students with agency to construct scientific knowledge. However, while the field has noted the social aspect of this epistemic work, few studies have attended to the relationality that is entwined with collective knowledge development. In this dissertation, I present three papers that explore how relational and epistemic activity are entangled in science classrooms. The first study uses a case of one teacher to explore the epistemic and relational aspects of pedagogical judgment, focusing on how her actions align and conflict with her responsibilities for her students. The second study explores the ways that authority is distributed in another classroom and how this authority can be disrupted or stabilized during whole-class modeling activities. The third study uses interviews to explore students’ experiences in both classrooms. Combined, these studies contribute an understanding of the complex work teachers do to weave together epistemic and relational aspects of collective science activity and considers how authority contributes to the way students experience their learning environments as collective and caring.
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2025