ABSTRACT

The aim of this chapter is to position the role of citizenship and values within the science curriculum. This is no easy task as the science curriculum itself has been, and still is in a constant state of flux. We only have to look at the numerous changes that the science curriculum has gone through in the last decade to appreciate that science educators and policy makers themselves do not have a cohesive approach to the constitution of a science curriculum. Yet despite this, new and increased demands are made of the science curriculum. Citizenship and values being just one of the components. The growing concern is summed up in the Nuffield Foundation Report, Beyond 2000: Science education for the future. Its opening words state:

This report is the product of a desire to provide a new vision of an education in science for our young people. It is driven by a sense of a growing disparity between the science education provided in our schools and the needs and interests of the young people who will be our future citizens. Education, at the end of the 20th century, no longer prepares individuals for secure, lifelong employment in local industry or services.

(Millar and Osborne, 1998: 1)