The descriptions below were drawn from the Dutch classroom observation data we collected over the course of the project. They are brief descriptions of situations that relate to one of the CRIOP dimensions. The examplars were translated into Spanish and into Chinese.

Interaction example 1 (Assessment practices): white boards

The teacher explains a Dutch grammar rule: does the past tense end with a -d or with a -t? Each child writes their answer on a small wipe-out white board and hold it up for their teacher to see. The teacher checks all the white boards and says something like “oh you make me all so happy!”. In doing so, the teacher enables each child to think about and show their own answer, without the need to speak up in class. This also allows her to scan which children might need extra instruction about the grammar rule.

Interaction example 2 (Classroom relationships): the dentist

The teacher is dressed as a dentist, when teaching words related to a visit to the dentist. Before defining all the words that are part of the lexical network, she asks a couple of children whether they have been to the dentist before they came to the Netherlands. Two children answer, and tell her that in their home country they did not have to wait in a waiting room, or that their teeth were checked standing in a long line. As such, the teacher shows curiosity about the childrens’s backgrounds and their stories. She embeds new knowledge in existing knowledge, acknowledging that previous knowledge matters.

Interaction example 3 (Instructional Practices): ‘snow’

The teacher gives the children an assignment on decoding a brief story in hieroglyphs. They are free choose between decoding the ancient language and translate it to Dutch, or to their native language. Two boys who speak different varieties of Arabic teach the teacher how she should pronounce ‘Snow’ in Arabic. She is eager to learn, laughs with the boys, and says “oh wow this is so difficult”. The boys have great fun, and in no time multiple children stand around them curious about what’s going on. 

Interaction example 5 (Socio-political consciousness*): what is a braid?      

The teacher (re)teaches vocabulary. The word ‘braid’ is the target word. She looks for examples in the classroom, compliments some girls with beautiful braids, gives a definition. One boy says “curls better braids” (sic). The teachers responds: “That is your opinion [emphasizes the word opinion], you think curls are prettier than curls. That is possible”.

*Typically this dimension would refer to classroom practices in which topics are discussed that strongly relate to power struggles, or societal issuers where perspective taking is essential. However, such interactions were not observed in the study. Being able to respect anothers opion, such as in this example, approximated this dimension best.