The Appropriation of Argumentation Norms in a Classroom Community

The aim of this study was to explore and describe how a classroom community appropriates argumentation norms over an entire school year that promotes epistemic understanding. It also assessed whether and how a sustained instructional focus on argumentation might improve individual children's understanding and application of key epistemic criteria for scientific arguments.;In my dissertation, I approach scientific argumentation as a social practice governed by discursive and negotiated norms, rather than simply as a cognitive skill, a prominent approach in argumentation studies in science education (cf. Kuhn, 1993; Von Aufschnaiter et al., 2008). This idea draws on sociological and ethnographical science studies that show scientists develop their understanding of science by negotiating and appropriating the norms of the relevant community (Latour, 1987; Longino, 1990). This view is consonant with sociocultural perspectives on learning that higher-order thinking originates from, and is negotiated in, social interaction (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). Methodologically, I draw on Cobb et al.'s (2001) work on mathematical practices integrating social and sociomathematical norms.;Using this framework, I traced how social and epistemic norms for argumentation are initiated, negotiated, and appropriated by students, and how they lead to individuals' use of valued epistemic criteria in arguments. I used a mixed-method approach. To explore the process of appropriating argumentation norms, I used a longitudinal, qualitative case study design using ethnographic observation (Meriam, 1994; Miller & Salkind, 2002). To examine whether and how the appropriation processes helped students to improve their epistemic understanding, I used a pre- post- argument construction and evaluation assessments, and conducted a quantitative analysis.;Children made significant improvements, both in their use of evidence to make arguments and in their evaluations of the evidentiary basis of claims in arguments they evaluated. The classroom community negotiated and refined the teacher-initiated goal of persuasion into norms regarding evidentiary standards. Children also learned how to apply evidentiary criteria in the construction and evaluation of arguments. These improvements included dramatic gains in the use of justification, in contrast to previous findings (Berland & Reiser, 2009; Erduran et al., 2004; Kelly et al., 1998; McNeill et al., 2006; Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). An obvious implication of this conclusion is that young children are capable of learning the desired practices of argumentation and of developing an understanding of the core epistemic criteria of scientific argument. The study suggests that efforts to support learning to argue scientifically should focus less on argument as a kind of task or lesson and more on argument as a discourse that runs through classroom tasks and may require sustained focus. These findings add to the field's understanding of children's capacities to develop epistemic competence, and suggest ways that teachers can promote productive argumentation.