Differential Participation During Science Conversations: The Interaction of Display Artifacts, Social Configurations, and Physical Arrangements

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate how different combinations of artifacts, social configurations, and physical arrangements give rise to different content and form of classroom discourse. Over a 4-month period, we collected data (videotaped activities, interviews, ethnographic observations, artifacts, and photographs) in a Gracie 6(1 science class studying a unit on simple machines. This study describes how different artifacts, social configurations, and physical arrangements lead to different interactional spaces and participant roles, and, concomitantly, to different levels of participation in classroom conversations. The artifacts had important functions in the maintenance and sequence of the conversations. Depending on the situation and the role of participants, artifacts served as resources for students' sense making. Each of the different activity structures supported different dimensions of participating in conversations and, for this reason, we conclude that science educators teaching large classes should employ a mixture of these activity structures.