Science plays a central role in industrialized as well as industrializing countries. It is not only one of the catalysts for the development of society, it also has a major part in its culture. This implies that an understanding of scientific phenomena is necessary to participate fully in society¹. Therefore, science achievement is an important outcome of schooling. However, the focus of research in academic achievement is mostly on literacy and numeracy and much less on other cognitive outcomes, such as sciences^2,3.

Research has already shown that different factors, such as gender⁴, grade retention⁵, and family’s socioeconomic status (SES)⁶, are related to science achievement. However, special attention should also be given to the role of literacy in science education⁷. Indeed, students need to acquire knowledge and skills through a decontextualized language, which is derived from the language of scientists and characterized by a specific vocabulary, a high level of abstraction and the description of phenomena with limited contextual support⁸. This is linked to the distinction between ‘basic interpersonal communicative skills’ (BICS) on the one hand and ‘cognitive academic language proficiency’ (CALP) on the other hand⁹. While BICS deals with the social use of language in daily activities (e.g. conversations), CALP refers to the decontextualized school language, which is a more complex and cognitively demanding language variant. Science education is one of the learning domains in which this language is most prominent because the focus lies on the understanding of concepts and the analysis, organization, synthesis and evaluation of information. Therefore, the decontextualized school language can be considered as the key to scientific understanding⁸.

To develop this decontextualized language and thereby learning to think in a complex way, students already need to have reached a certain proficiency level in the language of instruction. Moreover, language minority (LMi) students (i.e. students whose home language is not the same as the language of instruction) are faced with a double challenge: they have to acquire academic knowledge and skills through this decontextualized school language but they have to do this in the language of instruction, which they have not yet mastered fully¹⁰. This can lead to a situation in which language becomes a barrier to achieve a high level in science performance¹¹. Especially in light of the growing cultural and linguistic diversity classrooms are faced with today, it is vital to gain a better understanding of the role the home language plays in science achievement.

Finally, it is necessary to broaden educational research with studies incorporating a multilevel approach. In this way, not only student characteristics are taken into account but also the influence school characteristics have on student outcomes. Indeed, students attending the same school have more in common than students going to another school, due to selection procedures and students’ shared experiences by being part of the same group¹².

In this study, we take on a multilevel approach with the focus on the following research question:

How are both student and school characteristics associated with fourth grade students’ science achievement in primary schools with a diverse cultural and linguistic background?

In line with the European strategy for multilingualism¹³, which emphasizes promoting linguistic diversity in society, special attention is given to the role of having another home language than the language of instruction.

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