In this study we report findings on how the development of taste for science among primary school students (Year 2, ages 7-8) can be supported by fine-tuned adjustments in teaching. The concept of taste for science was originally developed as a proxy for student interest, treating the aesthetic and normative aspects of science learning as intertwined and as constituted in action (author et al., 2015a). Distinctions of taste not only concern what the individual knows and feels about science, for example, what constitutes a beautiful observation chart in biology class or whether students consider themselves to be science persons or not, they are also open for others to evaluate and judge (author, 2006).
Taste in general (Bourdieu, 1984; Dewey, 1934/1980) and taste for science thus is socially constituted and learnt and strongly associated with home background (author et al., 2013). Students with an academic background have been shown to be more likely to enter school with a taste for science that will be recognized and therefore more likely to be further cultivated (ibid). It is also well established that some students feel alienated to science and claim that it is not for them, even if they perform well in science (e.g. Archer et al., 2010). Thus teaching has an important compensatory role in supporting students developing a taste for science as taught in school and ultimately making more students feel that they are included in, rather than excluded from, the practices of their science classes.
Regardless of home background, students' interest in and identification with science show a clear decline at the transition between primary and lower secondary school (Potvin & Hasni, 2014) and there is a call for studies exploring how continuity between different school stages can come about through teaching and so potentially establish a more enduring interest in science (Potvin & Hasni, 2014). This is also the aim of this study, namely, to explore the role of teaching for student learning and taste development in science. In previous studies at the lower secondary school level we have shown how teaching can support students in developing a taste, as evident by how they make and aesthetically evaluate distinctions regarding language use, procedures, and ways-to-be in the science classroom (author el al., 2015b). Here we are interested in the younger students, and we ask: How can teaching support primary school students’ taste for science?
The study is part of a larger project in which we, teachers and researchers, collaborate in developing teaching for supporting communicative processes in the science classroom. The aim of the project is to develop didactic models for classroom communication, making them useful for teaching primary science particularly for second-language learners with non-academic backgrounds. Author 3 and Author 5 are the teachers of the students participating in the project. The two schools are located in suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden, where the students mainly have non-academic backgrounds and are second-language learners.