ABSTRACT
An often cited goal for science education reform is to increase the ‘scientific liter-
acy’ of graduates (AmericanAssociation for theAdvancement of Science [AAAS]
1993; National Research Council [NRC] 1994; National Science Teachers Asso-
ciation [NSTA] 1992, 1995; Rutherford and Ahlgren 1990), yet massive amounts
of money, time and effort associated with these reforms have effected little overall
change in scientific literacy (Eisenhart et al. 1996; Shamos 1995). One possible
reason for these shortcomings relates to the predominance of narrow and conven-
tional interpretations of scientific literacy. To achieve increased scientific literacy,
classrooms have been organized around activities intended to help students
develop and practise scientific process skills (i.e. the ‘scientific method’) and
accepted scientific knowledge and curricular materials have been developed with
the intention for students to engage in hands-on activities and discover the natural
world for themselves. These changes are predicated on the belief that students best
learn scientific concepts through engaging in the practices of ‘real scientists’
(Eisenhart et al. 1996). However, the visions of ‘real scientists’ and ‘real science’
that underlie these curricular reforms tend to be based on the myth that scientists
are a special class of people who are particularly endowed with superior mental
abilities, exceptional problem-solving competence, and well-tuned scientific
process skills that they use in an impartial pursuit of truth.
