'Brown paper packages'? A sociocultural perspective on young children's ideas in science

How do we see young children's thinking in science? Is it, as much previous research has led us to believe, that their ideas can be neatly boxed like 'brown paper packages tied up with strings' - as the song from The Sound of Music goes? Or are their ideas like 'wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings' (Sound of Music): fluid, complex, rich. . .? Drawing on the author's research into young children's ideas about natural phenomena such as the rain and clouds, and on Rogoff's three foci of analysis (personal, interpersonal and contextual), this paper illustrates how a consideration of sociocultural theory can be useful in framing research with young children, and allow us to see beyond the boxes. Emphasis is placed on recognising that children's thinking in science is embedded within particular sociocultural contexts, is guided by others and integrated with their use of certain mental and physical cultural tools. Thus, the article aims to present an alternative method for the generation of data on young children's thinking. Specific analysis of this data will, it is intended, be presented in a subsequent article. [Author abstract]