SAQ, SSI and STSE education: defending and extending "science in context"
Year: 2020

Many scholars suggest that recent major science education initiatives apparently tied to intense economic competitiveness and growth have prioritized education about "products" (e.g. laws, theories, innovations) and skills (e.g. experimentation) of fields of science and technology. Such initiatives also, apparently, tend to avoid research findings from fields of humanities and social sciences that frequently link, more or less directly, fields of science and technology with many often controversial harms for individuals, societies and environments. Cited as particularly problematic among humanity's many challenges is devastation from climate change associated with humans' uses of petroleum fuelled technologies. Over about the last five decades, however, science education scholars have been conducting research that may help educate students about "science in context" (SinC) conceptions, perspectives, skills, etc. regarding controversial harms like those mentioned above. In this review article, we analyze summaries provided here by four prominent scholars in their respective SinC fields, that is, about: Science, Technology, Society and Environment relationships, Socially Acute Questions and Socioscientific Issues Based on extended experiences by the authors here with aspects of the three SinC fields, we suggest that despite some niche differences in ontological epistemological and axiological positions of scholarship among them, their congruences perhaps offer hope to those wanting to provide students with more holistic and critical conceptions of associations of fields of science and technology with many of humanity's numerous personal, social and environmental threats that students may, in turn, use to contribute to a more just and environmentally sound world. Pour de nombreux chercheurs, les grandes initiatives recentes en matiere d'education scientifique ont donne la priorite a une education aux <produits> (lois, theories, innovations) et aux competences (experiences, par exemple) dans les domaines de l'enseignement des sciences et des technologies. Il apparait egalement que de telles initiatives ne mettent pas en evidence certaines des relations entre le developpement des sciences et des technologies et les effets deleteres sur les individus, les societes et les environnements. Par exemple, parmi les nombreux defis auxquels l'humanite est confrontee, l'on compte les impacts climatiques associes a l'utilisation par l'etre humain de technologies fonctionnant au petrole. Cela dit, au cours des cinq dernieres decennies, des chercheurs du domaine de l'education aux sciences ont mene des travaux qui permettent de familiariser les eleves avec les sciences en contexte (SinC) Dans cet article, nous portons un regard analytique sur les syntheses fournies par quatre chercheurs de premier plan dans leur champ respectif des SinC: il s'agit des relations entre les sciences, la technologie, la societe et l'environnement (STSE) des questions socialement vives (QSV) et des questions socioscientifiques (SSI) A la lumiere des points de vue de ces chercheurs, nous suggerons qu'en depit des quelques differences de natures ontologiques, epistemologiques et axiologiques, ces champs offrent la possibilite d'alimenter des visions plus holistiques et critiques des relations entre le developpement des sciences et des technologies ainsi de nombreux problemes environnementaux, personnels et sociaux. Ces conceptions, croyons nous, pourraient etre mises a contribution par les eleves dans la perspective d'un monde plus juste et plus respectueux de l'environnement.