The what and the how of teaching and learning: going deeper into sociological analysis and intervention

This chapter focuses on primary school science learning contexts and addresses one of the major research areas of the ESSA Group: the characteristics of pedagogic practices most favorable to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and competences by students of different social backgrounds. It is based on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse and Vygotsky's social constructivism and asks which modalities of pedagogic practice are more favorable to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and competences by all children. Our studies have shown that the effect of pedagogic practice can overcome the effect of children's social background and suggest a mixed pedagogy for successful scientific, social and affective learning (Morais and Neves 2001) and indicated how teachers' conceptual demand1 with respect to scientific knowledge and investigative competences is influenced by the social context of the school (Domingos 1989a; Miranda and Morais 1994). The study starts from these results and goes deeper into classroom analysis in order to search for a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the relative importance of each characteristic of pedagogic practice and their interplay for effective learning. We attempt to distinguish the characteristics of a practice both as a whole and separately.