Intersections of Equitable Sensemaking and Equitable Relationship‐Building: A Study of Two Elementary Teachers' Science Teaching

ABSTRACT Young students are naturally curious about the world around them. The increasing diversity of elementary classrooms necessitates elementary teachers equitably engage culturally and linguistically diverse students' curiosities through sensemaking and to build relationships with students. However, scientific sensemaking and relationship‐building are often treated separately in research and teacher education. Given their close proximity to one another in the work of teaching, we ask, How do equitable relationship‐building and equitable scientific sensemaking manifest in two elementary teachers' science teaching? And When a teacher foregrounds opportunities for equitable sensemaking, what effect (if any) does this have on relationship‐building? And When a teacher foregrounds equitable relationship‐building, what effect (if any) does this have on opportunities for sensemaking? We conducted a comparative case study of two early career elementary teachers who engaged their multilingual learners in making sense of local phenomena. Drawing on video recordings and interviews from two larger qualitative research studies, we conducted a secondary analysis to explore how these two teachers engaged in equitable relationship‐building and scientific sensemaking opportunities. We found that opportunities for sensemaking and relationship‐building co‐occurred, for example when opening up space to hear students' stories. In contrast, at times there were trade‐offs when the teachers foregrounded either sensemaking or relationship‐building. The teachers also discussed challenges related to district mandates that conflicted with their beliefs about best practices for teaching multilingual learners, as well as uncertainty about how to respond to students' religious beliefs in science, both of which complicated their efforts to build relationships with students and support their sensemaking. We theorize that equitable sensemaking and relationship‐building can and do co‐occur in spite of being typically studied separately in the literature. As well, we articulate practical implications for how teacher educators can help teachers engage students in equitable scientific sensemaking and relationship‐building, while also attending to organizational challenges.