The epistemological bridge as a framework to guide teachers to design culturally inclusive practices

In culturally diverse classrooms, science teachers may plan and enact didactic practices that do not include traditional epistemologies. My purpose is to develop an approach, to support teachers in designing epistemologically inclusive didactic practices. For this, I propose the Epistemological Bridge frame [EB; Castaño, N. (2009). Construcción Social de Universidad para la Inclusión: la formación de maestros con pertinencia y en contexto, desde una perspectiva intercultural [University social construction for Inclusion: Teacher education with relevance and in context from an intercultural perspective] based on epistemological pluralism [Cobern, W., & Loving, C. (2001). Defining "science" in a multicultural world: Implications for science education. Science Education, 85, 50-67. https://doi/10.1002/1098-237X(200101)85:1%3C50::AID-SCE5%3E3.0.CO;2-G] and interculturality [Aikenhead, G. S., & Michell, H. (2011). Bridging cultures: Indigenous and scientific ways of knowing nature. Pearson Education]. Through the EB, teachers might guide students to participate in the domain of every epistemology and to produce explanations on the same phenomenon using each epistemology. I make the EB operational by formulating the principles of epistemological independence and epistemological similarity. These principles describe features of inclusive didactic practices. Finally, I discuss practical aspects that underlie the use of EB by teachers. Thus, I address the issue of access to traditional epistemologies, the criteria for choosing traditional content, and the ontological commitments of students].