1. Relevance of the Topic: Inclusion and Participation in Cooperative Learning

The Global Sustainability Goals call for inclusive, equitable, and high-quality education for all (Reich, 2018). Inclusion is “an unending process of increasing learning and participation for all students” (Booth & Ainscow, 2002, p. 2). Yet it is still a long way to go: Empirical research not only shows that learning results depend on students’ social background (e.g., OECD, 2023), but also that classroom participation is often unequal: Students with low peer status or cultural capital participate less frequently (Black, 2004; Cohen et al., 1999). Cooperative learning methods are considered promising for reducing these inequalities (Thäle, 2019). Yet, empirical studies on how and under what conditions cooperative learning actually involves all students in cognitive activity and engagement with the subject matter are lacking. Our research project addresses this gap by analyzing the micro-level of co-constructive interaction processes in classroom discussions.

2. Defining Participation: A Didactic and Instructional Perspective on Cooperative Group Research

Participation is understood here as necessary involvement and opportunities for co-creation within classroom interaction processes (Frohn et al., 2019). As a reference, the “Didactic Model for Inclusive Teaching and Learning (DiMiLL)” emphasizes two dimensions:

Subject-didactic: Enabling societal participation through learning content concerning societal key issues (Buck & Breidbach, 2019; Klafki, 2007).

Instructional Perspective: Active involvement of all students in co-constructive interactions, e.g., through cooperative learning methods (Buck & Breidbach, 2019; Klafki, 2007).

Our study examines student participation in a cooperative group investigation setting (Sharan & Sharan, 1990) focusing on sustainability in a social studies class at a German comprehensive school (lower secondary education).

3. Research Questions: Exploring Participation in Co-Constructive Interaction Processes

The poster will present the background and study design as well as findings from the first step of our analysis of the video data and focus on the following key research question:

• Who participates how, when, and why (not) during classroom discussions in an 8th grade social science class?

Thus, we aim to uncover not only the patterns of participation in classroom discourse, but also the deeper mechanisms and contextual factors that shape students' engagement in collaborative learning environments.

We will present findings from a longitudinal case study. One 8th grade social science classroom was videographed during eight subsequent lessons. During the first phase (4 lessons) regular lessons were observed. During the second phase the teacher implemented a form of group investigation (Sharan & Sharan, 1990). The videography methodology in this study employs a multi-perspective recording setup—combining classroom cameras, Go-Pro devices, and table microphones—to systematically capture verbal interactions during cooperative group research. This approach is adapted from the Interfach Forschungsprogramm (n. d.), ensuring a comprehensive and detailed analysis of participation dy-namics and collaborative discourse. In addition to videography, the social science teacher teaching the class as well as 4 students were interviewed. 1. Grounded Theory as a Methodological Approach The constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) serves as the central methodological frame-work for this study. This approach is particularly suited to open-ended and exploratory research interests, as it emphasizes the iterative process of data collection and analysis (Mey & Reimer-Gordinskaya, 2021). Charmaz’s constructivist perspective builds on the classic abductive approach of Glaser and Strauss (Charmaz, 2011), but extends it by incorporating the researcher’s reflexive awareness of their own situatedness in the research process (Charmaz, 2014). This ensures that the knowledge generated is not imposed by preconceived theoretical assumptions but emerges from the participants’ perspectives. The iterative cycle of data collection and analysis is a hallmark of grounded theory. Researchers move between the field and analysis, continuously comparing and refining emerging categories until theoretical saturation is achieved (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). This process allows for the devel-opment of situated and local knowledge (Charmaz, 2011), which is particularly relevant for under-standing the complex social dynamics of classroom interactions. 2. Social Constructivist Epistemology Charmaz’s approach rejects the notion of developing universal, abstract theories. Instead, it recog-nizes that knowledge is socially constructed and shaped by the participants’ diverse perspectives (Charmaz, 2011). This aligns with the study’s focus on heterogeneous student populations, where students’ participation is shaped by their social and biographical contexts – thus meaning hetero-geneity brought from outside into the classroom (Budde, 2012). The social embeddedness of knowledge (Charmaz, 2014) is central to this framework. Knowledge is not seen as an isolated, objective entity but as something co-constructed through social interaction (Ryu & Lombardi, 2015).

The poster presentation will introduce the project, summarizing coding results and initial Ground-ed Theory insights, visualizing key findings such as participation patterns and emerging categories, and discussing next steps and open questions for further analysis.

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