In this article, we study third-year university students' reasoning about three controversial socio-scientific issues from the viewpoint of education for sustainable development: local issues (the reintroduction of bears in the Pyrenees in France, wolves in the Mercantour) and a global one (global warming). We used the theoretical frameworks of…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to a theoretical knowledge base through research by examining factors salient to science education reform and practice in the context of socioscientific issues. The study explores how individuals negotiate and resolve genetic engineering dilemmas. A qualitative approach was used to examine patterns of…

Socioscientific issues encompass social dilemmas with conceptual or technological links to science. The process of resolving these issues is best characterized by informal reasoning which describes the generation and evaluation of positions in response to complex situations. This article presents a critical review of research related to informal…

Discusses the inclusion of socio-scientific issues in science education. Describes a study in which adolescents who had successfully completed both high school chemistry and biology were interviewed to determine the extent to which they used their knowledge of the physical world, via nonsocial cognition, when analyzing such issues. (TW)

Discusses the inclusion of socio-scientific issues in science education from the standpoint of social cognition. Describes a study in which adolescents who had successfully completed both high school chemistry and biology were interviewed. Data suggest that their dominant domains of reasoning were in the area of social cognition. (TW)

This volume was conceived as a review of basic research in science education and as a discussion of what the research findings mean for K-12 science teachers. The eight reports presented represent different dimensions of science education. Each provides a review of a given dimension and/or a goal of science teaching and suggests ways that current…