Four years leading ESERA SIG6
ESERA SIG6 in Copenhagen in August 2025 © Magdalena Kersting. All Rights Reserved.
After four wonderful years as co-coordinator of ESERA's Special Interest Group on Languages and Literacies in Science Education (SIG6), I have officially stepped down from the role. What a brilliant journey this has been!
Looking back
When I took over in 2022, one of my first priorities was getting our community talking more regularly. And I am happy to say that our monthly journal clubs have turned out to be really popular: the online meetups give us an opportunity to dig into research papers and learn from each other's perspectives. And with more than 300 people on our mailing list representing an incredibly diverse international community, there are many perspectives to learn from!
One of my personal highlights was our Copenhagen meeting in September 2023. The discussions were rich, the connections inspiring, and the panel with four of our founding members – Christina Siry, Eduardo Mortimer, Clas Olander, and Kristina Danielsson – gave us a chance to reflect on how far we have come while mapping out future directions for our field.
That meeting also led to our position paper "From Founding Voices to Future Visions," which captures the rich insights of our community and establishes a vision for languages and literacies research in science education.
Passing the torch at ESERA 2025
The recent ESERA conference in Copenhagen provided the ideal transition moment for me and SIG6. Our pre-conference workshop at the Department of Science Education was energising, and our invited SIG6 symposium showcasing early-career scholars demonstrated the theoretical and methodological diversity of our community.
I am genuinely thrilled that Joonhyeong Park is taking over and joining Sara Wilmes as co-coordinator. Having worked with both of them, I know Joonhyeong and Sara’s expertise in multimodal research and multilingual contexts positions them well to take the next steps in our SIG journey with fresh energy and much enthusiasm.
Thank you
Above all, I want to express my gratitude for having led and been part of such a wonderful community of researchers and friends who have very much shaped my professional trajectory – and my thinking about science teaching and learning over the past years.
To everyone who has participated in journal clubs, attended meetings, contributed to symposia, or simply been part of our community – thank you. You have made these four years an absolute pleasure 🙂
Of course, I am not going anywhere anytime soon. I will continue to cheer from the sidelines, contribute to our discussions, and most of all, learn from this wonderful group of researchers and friends. Here is to Sara, Joonhyeong, and the exciting future of languages and literacies in science education.