ABSTRACT
As science educators we (the authors) are interested in ways of understanding scientific literacy and public understanding of science that allows us to conceive of development as trajectories of legitimate peripheral participation. That is, we are not interested in what scientific literacy looks like just in individual adults, or what science education looks like just in schools. Rather, we are interested in understanding and theorizing ways of participating in science and scientific literacy that do not have boundaries coincident with formal education and life thereafter. In this effort, we do not believe that models from life after school, such as the concept of “authentic science” derived from studies of scientific practice, ought to be imposed on school activity. Equally, we do not believe that the often narrowly conceived ideas of science and scientific literacy that predominate in science education today ought to be imposed on what and how people should know about science once they have left formal education. Both our research agendas are in part concerned with science and science education in the community, including in schools, where the boundaries dissolve to the point that students and ordinary people can participate reciprocally in activities that previously have been created for their respective age group.
