Explanations about Science in Parent-Child Conversations
Maureen A. Callanan

Explanatory conversations between parents and children have been argued to
be a context in which children develop intuitive theories about the world.
There is some controversy, however, about what such conversations can tell
us regarding cognitive change in children. On the one hand several
researchers have argued for the importance of exploring natural
conversations for clues about how children revise their understanding of
the world. On the other hand, critics of this approach point out the
problems of assessing what children learn as a result of such
conversations. This presentation will focus on research from several
studies of parent-child conversations about science, including
naturally-occurring conversations in a museum context, more controlled
studies of conversation while engaging in experimentally-designed tasks,
and diary studies of children's "why" questions. Evidence against the
transmission view of knowledge development will be discussed. At the same
time, examples will be used to help articulate the methodological problems
that need to be solved if conversational data can be utilized to learn
more about children's conceptual change in rich domains.