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Socioscientific Issues and Multidisciplinarity in School Science Textbooks

Socioscientific Issues and Multidisciplinarity in School Science Textbooks The inclusion of socioscientific issues (SSIs) in the science curriculum is a well-established trend internationally. Apart from claims about its innate value, one of the rationales for this approach is its potential for helping to counter declining interest and participation. SSIs involve the use of science and are of interest to society, also raising ethical and moral dilemmas. Introducing such problems presents a significant and usually cross-disciplinary challenge to curriculum developers and teachers. The aim of this paper is to examine how this challenge has been met when judged against contemporary views of the issues concerned. It first explores how SSIs have been interpreted in an important and innovative science course for students aged 14–16 in England, entitled Twenty First Century Science. This paper analyses the Twenty First Century Science textbooks, focusing in detail on two SSIs, reproductive genetic technology and climate change. For each of these issues, the key ideas present in the social science literature surrounding the problems are outlined. This review is then used as an analytical framework to examine how the issues are presented in the textbooks. It is argued in this paper that the perspectives the textbooks take on these issues largely do not include perspectives from social science disciplines. It goes on to suggest that the development of future SSI-based curricula needs to take account of these wider, often interdisciplinary, perspectives. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Science Education Taylor & Francis

Socioscientific Issues and Multidisciplinarity in School Science Textbooks

Morris, Helen
International Journal of Science Education , Volume 36 (7): 22 – May 3, 2014
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References (50)

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.
ISSN
1464-5289
eISSN
0950-0693
DOI
10.1080/09500693.2013.848493
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The inclusion of socioscientific issues (SSIs) in the science curriculum is a well-established trend internationally. Apart from claims about its innate value, one of the rationales for this approach is its potential for helping to counter declining interest and participation. SSIs involve the use of science and are of interest to society, also raising ethical and moral dilemmas. Introducing such problems presents a significant and usually cross-disciplinary challenge to curriculum developers and teachers. The aim of this paper is to examine how this challenge has been met when judged against contemporary views of the issues concerned. It first explores how SSIs have been interpreted in an important and innovative science course for students aged 14–16 in England, entitled Twenty First Century Science. This paper analyses the Twenty First Century Science textbooks, focusing in detail on two SSIs, reproductive genetic technology and climate change. For each of these issues, the key ideas present in the social science literature surrounding the problems are outlined. This review is then used as an analytical framework to examine how the issues are presented in the textbooks. It is argued in this paper that the perspectives the textbooks take on these issues largely do not include perspectives from social science disciplines. It goes on to suggest that the development of future SSI-based curricula needs to take account of these wider, often interdisciplinary, perspectives.

Journal

International Journal of Science Education – Taylor & Francis

Published: May 3, 2014

Keywords: Socioscientific issues; Curriculum; Textbooks; Multidisciplinarity

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