Abstract
Explaining is among the most important discursive practice for science and its teaching. In the last decades this topic received attention from official documents, teachers and researchers. However, research in science teaching highlights the difficulty in defining this concept. In this paper we review the concept of explanation from three basic perspectives: explanations and narratives; explanation and arguments; scientific explanation and school science explanation. This work seeks firstly to bring clarity to the above-mentioned concepts, highlighting the fact that explanation, arguments and narratives are important but distinct elements of science classroom discourse. Limits in explanatory practices in relation to arguments and narratives are discussed. It also shows the importance of the topic for science teaching and the lack of research on explanations in Brazilian literature.
Keywords:
Science teaching; Explanations; Arguments; Narratives; Literature review