Representations as mediational means in students meaning-making about the human body

The aim of this proposal is to investigate students’ meaning-making processes of multiple representations during a teaching sequence about the human body in lower secondary school. Two main influences are brought together to accomplish the analysis, on the one hand, theories on signs and representations as scaffoldings for learning and, on the other hand, pragmatist theories on how continuity between the purposes of different inquiry activities can be sustained. Data consist of 10 videotaped and transcribed lessons with 14-year-old students (N=26) in Sweden. The analysis focussed instances where meaning of representations were negotiated. Findings indicate that continuity was established as a progression in use of language, towards a more scientific register but in a mode continuum between every day and scientific registers. In this process, the use of interlanguage expression enables the students and the teacher to keep on the conversation and explain more urgent issues to support of the end-in-view of the immediate action. Furthermore, understanding of the human body is dependent on explanations on multiple organisation levels and students learning progressions was afforded by representations that specifically pointed towards shift in organisation levels