The integration of SSI in science education calls for interactive pedagogy in which students’ voices, in terms of their knowledge, experiences, values, and emotions, are acknowledged.  However, previous research reveals that it is a challenging task for science teachers to incorporate more interactive pedagogy. Moreover, many science teachers are hesitant to handle values and deal with emotions that may arise in discussions on SSI.

To extend the knowledge of how the acknowledgement of students’ voices can be promoted, this study explored how students’ voices were acknowledged through teacher-student interactions in a SSI classroom. Recordings of conversations between a teacher and six student groups who were working on a SSI dealing with climate change provided data for the analysis. The concepts of positioning (Harré & Langenhove, 1999) and high level evaluation (Nystrand, 1997) were used as analytical tools.

The results suggest that the teacher’s positioning of the students as citizens who share the responsibilities and the concerns for the causes and the consequences of climate change invited them to share their emotions, knowledge and experiences in relation to climate change. The results also show that teachers cannot escape the responsibility of supporting students in dealing with negative emotions in relation to SSI, and suggest that one way of dealing with students’ negative emotions is to incorporate discussions of societal efforts to take action in response to SSI.