ABSTRACT
Our research explores how conversations with parents help children to develop conceptual understanding and ways of thinking in science domains. Over the past few decades, research on science education has increasingly considered the importance of informal science learning at home, in museums, and in other nonschool contexts, as well as science learning in formal classroom settings (see Leinhardt, Crowley, & Knutson, 2002; Paris, 2002). This shift in the education literature meshes well with trends in the field of cognitive developmental psychology, where sociocultural approaches have refocused the study of cognitive development. Rather than focusing on the child’s knowledge as a measurable individual entity, these theories have encouraged attention on the essentially social processes by which conceptual change occurs as children engage in everyday cultural practices (see Cole, 2002; Rogoff, 2003).
