ABSTRACT

There are practical problems in several countries with the perception of science among young people, and a correspondingly low uptake of physical sciences in schools and colleges – all of which suggest that we take a fresh look at the curriculum. Criticisms emanating from the fields of metascience and postmodern philosophy may be relevant to some of this dissatisfaction. But that alone would probably not have been enough to stimulate the present glut of changes to the science curricula in many countries if it were not also the case that many countries felt the need for a broader scientific education among their population. This brings us to the last term in the title of this chapter, scientific culture, which is beginning to replace both ‘public understanding of science’ and ‘scientific literacy’ in some European documents. But the term ‘scientific culture’ includes in particular the connotations of culture as a kind of knowing which is familiar to many, of general popular esteem, but hard to specify exactly. None of these notions describes the common objectives of science education at the present time: ‘esteem’ and ‘familiarity’ are new and uncertain goals, and it is far from clear how any school curriculum might support them.