Dialogic Teaching in Science Classrooms

Dear Colleagues,

Science education is increasingly recognized as not merely the acquisition of facts, but as a social and communicative process. At its core, ‘doing science’ involves engaging in specific ways of talking, reasoning, and arguing. Dialogic teaching characterized by collective, reciprocal, and cumulative inquiry offers a powerful framework for transforming classrooms into communities of discovery (Alexander, 2006). In these spaces, students are encouraged to think aloud, challenge ideas, and co-construct scientific understandings (Mercer & Littleton, 2007). However, implementing dialogic approaches in science classrooms presents unique tensions. The inherently authoritative nature of scientific knowledge often clashes with the dialogic need for student exploration (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Teachers frequently struggle to navigate the balance between guiding students toward established scientific canons and honoring their emergent, sometimes non-canonical ideas (Zhai & Tan, 2015). In the era of Generative AI, scientific meaning-making increasingly unfolds through human–AI dialogue, making students’ ability to communicate, question, critique, and refine ideas central to their epistemic agency (Tang & Putra, 2025; Kim, 2022). This shift calls for science education to move beyond individual knowledge acquisition toward cultivating collective intelligence through dialogic pedagogy, where AI-supported environments foster collaborative problem-solving, ethical reasoning, and critical engagement with complex real-world challenges such as those of the Anthropocene (Wegerif & Casebourne, 2025).

This Special Issue of Education Sciences aims to bring together cutting-edge research that examines the role of dialogue in science learning across diverse educational contexts, ranging from early childhood to higher education and from formal classrooms to informal settings like museums or nature centers. We seek to explore how dialogic practices can empower students’ epistemic agency, deepen their conceptual understanding, and foster their sense of belonging within the scientific community (Rinehart, Kuhn, & Milford, 2022).

We invite the submission of original empirical studies (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), systematic reviews, and conceptual papers that push the boundaries of current discourse. We are particularly interested in how dialogic teaching can be leveraged to address issues of equity, diversity, and the complexities of socio-scientific issues (SSIs).

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Teacher–student dynamics: Navigating the ‘dialogic–authoritative’ tension in science inquiry and the role of teacher feedback in sustaining deep talk.
• Scientific argumentation: How peer-to-peer dialogue facilitates the use of evidence, modeling, and the critique of scientific claims.
• Technology-mediated dialogue: The impact of AI, digital platforms, and virtual laboratories on collaborative sense-making.
• Equity and inclusion: Using dialogic teaching to support linguistically diverse learners and marginalized voices in the science classroom.
• Professional development: Innovative models for coaching teachers in the art of facilitating productive scientific talk.
• Multimodality in dialogue: The interplay between verbal discourse, bodily gestures, drawings, and physical models in scientific meaning-making.
• Socio-scientific issues (SSIs): Dialogic approaches to teaching ‘wicked problems’ such as climate change, ethics in biotechnology, and public health.

We welcome contributions that not only describe ‘what was said’ in the classroom, but also analyze the mechanisms through which talk leads to learning. Submissions should be grounded in robust theoretical frameworks (e.g., Alexander, Mercer, Mortimer & Scott, or Bakhtin) and offer clear implications for both future research and pedagogical practice.

Alexander, R. J. (2006). Towards dialogic teaching : rethinking classroom talk (Third edition.). Dialogos.

Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children's thinking: A sociocultural approach. London: Routledge.

Mortimer, E. F., & Scott, P. H. (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classroom. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Rinehart, R. W., Kuhn, M., & Milford, T. M. (2022). The relationship between epistemic cognition and dialogic feedback in elementary and middle school science classrooms. Research in Science & Technological Education, 40(3), 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/02635143.2020.1799779.

Tang, K. S., & Putra, G. B. S. (2025). Generative AI as a dialogic partner: Enhancing multiple perspectives, reasoning, and argumentation in science education with customized Chatbots. Journal of Science Education and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-025-10240-1.

Wegerif, R., & Casebourne, I. (2025). A dialogic theoretical foundation for integrating generative AI into pedagogical design. British Journal of Educational Technology, 00, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.70026.

Zhai, J., & Tan, A.-L. (2015). Roles of teachers in orchestrating learning in elementary science classrooms. Research in Science Education, 45(6), 907-926. doi:10.1007/s11165-014-9451-9.

Dr. Junqing Zhai
Dr. Cao Ye
Dr. Xiaomei Yan
Dr. Song Xue
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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