Influence of parents’ views about science on parent–child science talk at home

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores parents’ views of science as a family sociocultural background that influences how parents support children’s science talk as they engage in a science activity together at home. We focus on Indonesian families as they have distinct sociocultural characteristics that may yield different parent–child interactions than their Western counterparts in informal science learning settings. A microethnography approach and thematic discourse analysis are employed to capture the parent–child science talk and interactions. Findings show that Indonesian parent–child interactions are directive and collectivist in nature. Parents tend to lead learning at home, and the other family members voluntarily participate. Through their science talks, Indonesian parents engaged children in the science activity using explanatory talk, corrective feedback, and real-world connections. Throughout the interactions, the parents emphasized particular science knowledge and practices based on their views of science. We present three cases where the parents viewed science as a hypothesis-testing practice, as knowledge related to everyday phenomena, and as an inference-making process. Their talks and support for children’s learning varied due to these different views of science. The study adds to the limited literature on parent–child interactions in informal science learning in non-Western contexts.