ABSTRACT
Science-technology-society (STS), environmental and feminist movements over
the past three decades, combined with developments in the philosophy and soci-
ology of science, have increasingly placed science curricula under scrutiny. On the
one hand, science education is deemed to be out of touch with society, leaving
pupils poorly equipped to deal with a complex modern world of scientific and tech-
nological controversy; on the other hand, science education is considered elitist,
perpetuating under-representation of certain groups in science (Driver et al. 1996;
Fensham 1993). Feminist critics of science, for example, have argued that the
power embedded in masculine discourses of science reproduces the subordination
of women and that the lack of women in science is one outcome (Harding, S. 1986,
1991). Providing science curricula with a social context by inclusion of STS issues
in the curriculum has been viewed both as a means of promoting socio-scientific
awareness of the social, political and economic dimensions to science and as
opening up science to females and excluded or disadvantaged ethnic and class
groups. Following early controversy, STS has now gained recognition and some
science syllabuses have been adapted and redeveloped with one or more of these
aims in mind.
