Citizenship+and+science+education


 * Citizenship and science education**

The concept of citizenship is both historically contingent and contested. From policy documents, curriculum formulations and other writings there is no distinctive notion of citizenship. But it seems to me that three main ways of talking about citizenship emerge from what has been done on SSI and Science and Citizenship up to date. The most prominent is the depiction of the school student as the ‘future citizen’. The role of the school is acculturation, to instruct pupils in the skills and knowledge and values of what it means to be part of a democratic society. In terms of science education, students are given certain dilemmas, such as MMR vaccination, whether to tell children they have tested positive for Huntington’s disease, conundrums about production of materials and spoilage, and ideally learn critical thinking and argumentation skills through approaching the problems. This is the kind of approach adopted by Nuffield 2000 in the UK, the Twenty First Century Science course and the Science and the Citizen policy working group in the early 2000s in the UK. There are a number of problems with this approach. So, are there other models of school science and citizenship? Yes, but best to describe two extremes. One simply says that the school science curriculum simply isn’t the place to deal with SSI because of its complexity - concentrate on what can be taught well in school and leave scientific decision-making to the experts. This I have termed the ‘deficit’ approach although it is more nuanced than the way I have described it. The other approach is what I would call ‘activism’ and empowers school students to make changes that they see as desirable, and which address the manifest injustices in a profit-driven society. Whereas a ‘future’ citizen might role play whether change is desirable and how they might go and achieve it, ‘activism’ sets about underpinning the grounds of knowledge and skills to make change. The ‘deficit’, ‘future citizen’ and ‘activist’ approaches come with opportunities and problems. The table below is an attempt on my part to characterise different approaches to citizenship and SSI, and is derived from an article I wrote for a Brazilian journal, //Alexandria//. The models are not exhaustive.
 * 1) Schools, except in very rare exceptions, are by necessity, undemocratic. For example, pupils don’t have a choice as to whether they go to school or not. Any democratisation of schools structures, eg student councils, still maintain power structures and the role of the school as a social engineer. Culturally, schools replicate society and hence maintain structural inequalities. So, there are strong constraints on how democratic citizenship can be understood in schools.
 * 2) The idea of ‘future’ citizen disenfranchises the school student. How far can teaching and learning in schools replicate, model and make real real-life decision-making?
 * 3) How scientific knowledge is used is problematic. The science learned in school curricula in western countries is inert in socio-scientific decision-making. What matters are, mostly, other aspects of decision-making: trust, resource availability, local and contingent circumstances, social and economic decisions which are often complex and situated.
 * 4) Science teachers who teach an authoritative and even authoritarian curriculum understandably find it very difficult to deal with issues outside their expertise.
 * 5) The epistemological relationship between reductionist science( I don’t use the term perjoratively) and social decision-making is messy and has not been properly worked out.

teacher - student || Corpus of science || Science to be known is correct and certain. Nature is knowable. Where there are uncertainties and tentative knowledge this resides in the domain of experts. ‘Hard’ science diffuses out into applied science. || Students and lay people are unlikely to have the requisite knowledge and understanding to engage in controversial issues. Nonetheless, as well as science content they can be taught about the methods of science and controversies both within the scientific and socio-scientific domains || Authority of knowledge resides within science and the teacher as science’s representative. Knowledge needed for a controversy can be brought to the attention of students. || Test knowledge/facts of science relevant to a controversy || er - student || Corpus of science and other disciplines || Science to be known is correct but the emphasis is on the methods and procedures of science rather than facts. Science diffuses out into social applications but there is some transparency about the scientific process. || Takes place within the classroom but might involve analysing science in newspapers distinguishing rhetoric from evidence || Teacher controls content but might be a facilitator in discussion. || Tests argumentation abilities, use of warrants to support claims || er/student as collaborators in school context || Science as needed || Teacher/experts delineate areas of controversy but science is seen as contestable and responsive to social needs. || Participative. || Teacher as facilitator. Knowledge shared between teacher and students || Could be knowledge and skills participant brings to sorting out a problem but difficult to ascertain || Student. Trust likely to exist between consumer and expert. || Various. Academic/decontextualised and local/contextualised. Interdisciplinary. || Limitations of academic science recognised but also its possibilities. Role for anecdotal evidence and lay decontextualised knowledge. The workings of science are transparent and contestable but there are still boundaries between science and society. || All parties engage in dialogue in trying to reach a resolution. Often action-oriented or action is an outcome. || Knowledge shared, distributed and negotiated between experts and users || Complex and problematic. Identifiers in a process such as the nature of dialogue || of participants || Emerges from needs of participants and usually draws on local ‘knowledges’. Scientific knowledge is subservient to the needs of the collective and frequently challenged || Shared and distributed. Facts and theories of ‘academic’ science are seen as irrelevant or marginal to the needs of the community. Science is heterogeneously distributed among groups and communities. || Might be around a particular issue but it is the view of science which is contentious. Drive is to address a social injustice. ‘Scientific literacy is the contingently received outcome’. Action-oriented. || Knowledge shared and distributed between participants. Authority shaped by praxis. || Problematic ||
 * Model || Hierarchy || Source of knowledge || View of knowledge || Controversy || Pedagogy || Asssessment ||
 * Deficit || Scientist –
 * Future citizen || Scientist/teach
 * Socio-pragmatic (after Fensham et al.) || Scientist/teach
 * Student as citizen || Scientist/User/
 * Student as activist || Led by needs

I would argue that the justifications for teaching various SSIs are related to the different approaches listed above. However, within a school context there is one advantage SSIs have over the teaching of substantive science. With the latter, there is little room for genuine open discussion. While teachers might manufacture ways of talking about entities such as atoms, forces and change, the end result is for students to be immersed into a particular way of thinking and conceptualising nature. Hydrogen has an atomic number of one; as far as school students go this is not up for discussion or debate. Newton’s laws and the laws of thermodynamics are presented as ‘true’ descriptions of a material world as is Evolution. That is not to say that science cannot be presented to young people at school as tentative and provisional; in the end though it really is a ‘rhetoric of conclusions’. The point about SSIs is that they are anything but and therefore opens up genuine possibilities for discussion, considered action and critical thinking. Projected beyond the school domain the grounds are democratic.
 * // On what grounds do we choose SSIs? //**

The questions about choosing SSIs raise interesting questions. My experience is that worthy topics usually about genetics are chosen; how far do young people have a choice? How many practitioners offer students genuine choices about what they want to talk about? The development of citizenship skills and articulation of values are connected. Some of the best teaching I have seen in SSI gently pushes young people to hold up their beliefs and values to account. Too often arguments resort to ‘that’s what I believe’. Beliefs don’t just emerge in a vacuum. They are value-laden but in a democratic society beliefs must be defensible. If they’re not then they should be challenged. Schools should not retreat from this problem but schools which have authoritarian hierarchical structures – particularly those where top down policies are imposed on headteachers – are unlikely to provide the kinds of environments where these problems can be addressed. The last thing to add is what issues are controversial. To my mind questions such as :Is global warming happening? Should homosexuality be illegal? Is Creationism a viable alternative to Evolution? are not controversial issues. The questions begged are not reasonable ones. How should we go about reducing the effect of global warming does seem to me to be a genuinely controversial issue, however.

Response from Clare Ralph, Have just added my bit and read yours. It is great, and goes to the heart of things. It answers the Davies paper critiquing science educators' tokenistic use of citizenship - it needs to be in a major sc ed journal...(maybe it is?) I particularly agree with your problem no.5. I don't think we have any theoretical (epistemological) framework yet. Maybe it's impossible to relate the two but that is our challenge I guess. I think your piece connects well with Larry's activism focus. Re concept knowledge it is currently inert (no. 3) but surely there are concepts e.g. radiation or the nature of micro-organisms which can play a vital role in understanding an issue, perhaps if we approach them differently?