This paper deals with a theoretical mechanism for learning and a methodological approach for analyzing meaning making in classroom talk and action. It examines the potential of the approach for illuminating learning on a discursive level, i.e., how discourses change and how individuals become participants of new practices. Our approach involves a high-resolution analysis of how meaningful relations are built in encounters between individuals and between individuals and the world. The approach is based mainly on the work of the later Wittgenstein, but also on pragmatism and sociocultural research. To demonstrate how our approach can be used, we analyze what university students learn during a practical on insects. We specifically demonstrate how the encounters with physical pinned insects contribute to the meaning students make and how these encounters interact with other experiences during laboratory work.

ABSTRACT:The practical epistemology used by students and the epistemological moves delivered by teachers in conversations with students are analyzed in order to understand how teaching activities interplay with the "how" and the "what" of students' learning. The purpose is to develop an approach for analyzing the process of privileging in students' meaning making and how individual and situational aspects of classroom discourse interact in this process. Here we especially focus on the experiences of students and the encounter with the teacher. The analyses also demonstrate that a study of teaching and learning activities can shed light on which role epistemology has for students' meaning making, for teaching and for the interplay between these activities. The methodological approach used is an elaboration a sociocultural perspective on learning, pragmatism, and the work of Wittgenstein. The empirical material consists of recordings made in science classes in two Swedish compulsory schools.

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ABSTRACT:In this paper, we describe two central epistemological norms related to the importance of making investigations and to scientific language and its logic. These norms have been identified in empirical material consisting of 200 video-recorded lessons in three different science classes. With regard to the learning of science and socialization, we discuss and problematize these norms in the context of science learned at school and the nature of science. A methodological approach has been developed and used to analyze and identify the role that teachers' actions play in which epistemology students adopt in their meaning making and to highlight which view of science this usage represents. The approach consists of a combination of three methodologies: practical epistemology analyses, epistemological move analyses, and analyses of companion meanings. This combination produces communication analysis of companion meanings. The theory is based on pragmatism, sociocultural approaches to learning, and the later works of Wittgenstein. The companion meanings described in the empirical material indicate that if students learn the identified norms without any explicit problematization, they will only view science as rational and inductive in character and exclude alternative views from the practice.