Learning scientific concepts through material and social activities: Conversational analysis meets conceptual change

The number of analyses of cognitive activity situated in a material and social world has increased. It has been particularly challenging to the theoretician and researcher to make the bridge from macrosocial theories of cultural learning to microanalytic details of situated human activities for learning in specific subject domains. The ontogenesis of conceptual change in scientific thinking provides a central case for examining this problem. A sociocultural framework informed by studies of conversation analysis is described, in which meaning negotiation and appropriation are identified as mechanisms for achieving such conceptual change. Key implications of this perspective for the design and study of learning environments are outlined.