Introduction

The final section in this publication is fittingly concerned with research in science education in Europe. Two of the three papers included were part of the input to a symposium which addressed this area. Solomon bases her paper on a comparative study setting school education in the context of a possible future, European, scientific culture. She proposes a way of applying the term ‘scientific culture’ to the study of curricula. The findings, perhaps unsurprisingly, point to diversity of science experiences at school and beyond, but highlight features across the countries which may contribute to a future popular science culture. Lijnse has as his focus the European PhD summer schools of 1993 and 1994, pointing to differences in several European countries in the research programmes at this level.