‘They might know a lot of things that I don’t know’: investigating differences in preservice teachers’ ideas about contextualizing science instruction in multilingual classrooms

Abstract

This paper describes the results from a qualitative study of 72 preservice teachers’ initial ideas about contextualizing science instruction with language minority students. Participants drew primarily on local ecological and multicultural contexts as resources for contextualizing instruction. However, preservice teachers enrolled in the bilingual certification program articulated more asset-oriented and less stereotypical ideas than those not seeking bilingual certification. Results can inform teacher education programs that aim to prepare graduates for teaching science in multilingual classrooms.