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Handbook of Research on Science Education

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Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education

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Douglas A. Roberts, Rodger W. Bybee
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SECTION EDITOR: PAUL BLACK

Section V
Curriculum and Assessment in Science
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27
Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy,
and Science Education
DOUGLAS A. ROBERTS AND RODGER W. BYBEE
This chapter updates and extends an earlier review and analy-
sis of the scientific literacy concept as a feature of school sci-
ence education literature and practice over the past half century
(Roberts, 2007). Unlike the 2007 review, this one is not intended
to be a comprehensive survey of what is happening globally in
countries where scientific literacy is being advanced. Instead,
the focus is on presenting a methodology for detecting indica-
tors of change in the way scientific literacy is being embraced
as a major goal for school science programs. To that end, we
have selected examples of policy and policy-oriented docu-
ments from Australia, Canada, England, and the United States,
as well as the upcoming (2015) Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA) science assessment.
The 2007 review drew attention to the widespread—
indeed, virtually worldwide—popularity of scientific lit-
eracy in recent decades as an umbrella term to represent
overall educational objectives for school science pro-
grams. Referring to the appeal the term has had for the
profession, one observer has characterized its rise of pop-
ularity over 50 years as “triumphal progress” (Feinstein,
2011). The term science literacy has become increasingly
common also, especially in the United States. The status
and usage of this term has grown steadily since all publica-
tions of Project 2061 of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) began using the term
exclusively. As discussed in more detail in what follows,
the original review dubbed these two terms, respectively,
Vision II and Vision I of the scientifically literate person.
In the nearly 10 years since the material was assem-
bled and analyzed for the 2007 review, there have been
indicators that scientific literacy is slowing its triumphal
progress and losing the “worldwide cachet” it seemed to
enjoy in earlier decades (McEneaney, 2003). In particular,
there seems to be a withdrawal from Vision II in favor of
Vision I. In the United States, for example, the 1996 docu-
ment National Science Education Standards (National
Research Council [NRC], 1996) is virtually built around
Vision II scientific literacy as a backbone concept. By
545
contrast, in the 2012 document A Framework for K–12
Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts,
and Core Ideas (National Research Council, 2012), the
terms scientific literacy and science literacy do not appear
to play a significant role. As discussed in what follows,
the 2012 NRC document lacks Vision II opportunities for
students to grasp how the application of scientific knowl-
edge and practices bear on socioscientific issues. In fact,
that limitation is part of the charge to the committee that
developed the document.
It is our contention that the limited presence of Vision II
in the NRC Framework, and the subsequent (inevitable)
decreased emphasis in the new standards for U.S. science
education, is an example (one of several) that suggests a
trend toward withdrawal of professional commitment to
Vision II of scientific literacy at this time. Following this
brief introduction, the chapter unfolds in the following way:
• A restatement of the characteristics of Vision I and
Vision II
• Two curriculum arrangements that provide opportunities
to learn (OTL) for Vision II
• The significance of discourse: SSI (The Socio-Scientific
Issues Project) sets an example
• Reduction of Vision II in the new U.S. Framework for
K–12 Science Education
• Reduction of Vision II in the framework for Assessment
of Science in PISA 2015
• The many perspectives and broad scope of Vision II
• Whither science education? Tentative explanations and
implications
Science Literacy Is Not the Same
as Scientific Literacy
As the title of this chapter suggests, both scientific literacy
and science literacy, as curriculum concepts, have close
connections to school science education research and
 546 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee
practice at this time. However, the terms and concepts as
currently used in our profession are not interchangeable.
To be sure, it seemed they were when both began to appear
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in the literature at about the same time, in the 1950s. Since
that time, much has happened to the concepts and prac-
tices the two terms represent. The distinctions between the
two are crucially important for understanding the current
situation as we perceive it.
Two Visions, Two Purposes for Science
Education
The earlier review (Roberts, 2007) proposed that two
broad, overall visions of the meaning of scientific literacy
can be distilled from the detailed science education lit-
erature that has developed since the 1950s. Each vision
embodies a broadly different image of the scientifically lit-
erate individual, and each provides the basis of a different
orientation for school science education that would nur-
ture and develop the individual in that direction. Vision I,
so named because the image of student as novice scientist
was probably the earliest guide used to plan precollegiate
school science, offers a blueprint for science education that
introduces students systematically to the scientific enter-
prise itself. This is very much a “foundational” (Osborne,
2007b) or “Solid Foundation” (Roberts, 1982) orientation
to the purpose of school science—that is, mastering what
is needed to study more advanced science in future. Vision
I looks inward at science, to build curriculum from its rich
and well-established array of techniques and methods,
habits of mind, and well-tested explanations for the events
and objects of the natural world. Literacy, in this view, is
within science—general familiarity and fluency within the
discipline, based on mastering a sampling of the language,
products, processes, and traditions of science itself. As
we understand the analysis by Norris and Phillips (2003),
this would be a “fundamental sense” of scientific literacy.
Historically, the reform curricula of the Sputnik era were
consistent with a Vision I orientation.
Vision II, developed later in the history of school sci-
ence, begins by looking outside science to build curricu-
lum that illuminates how science permeates and interacts
with many areas of human endeavor and life situations.
These societal issues and individual life situations usually
include political, economic, and ethical considerations.
This view is sometimes called science for citizenship,
concentrating on matters of more obvious personal and
social relevance to students than preparing to grasp more
demanding science they might or might not study. The
slogan “science for all” represents a viewpoint that all stu-
dents need some introduction to citizen science, includ-
ing such matters as environmental quality, resource use,
personal health, and decision making about complex
socioscientific issues. According to Vision II thinking,
what counts as scientific literacy is learning how science
fits appropriately with such personal and societal per-
spectives for a more complete grasp of the issues. This
is what we understand as the “derived” sense of scientific
literacy in the analysis by Norris and Phillips (2003). In
Vision II classrooms, students learn how the discourse of
resolving issues and making decisions differs from and
complements the explanatory discourse of science itself.
Historically, the term scientific literacy has been used to
refer to this more inclusive vision. The term continues to
be used, for example, in Canada, Australia, and England,
in PISA, and in some science education programs such
as Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) in the United States. As
a  curriculum term, scientific literacy typically incorpo-
rates a large number of diverse school science objectives
associated with personal and societal issues. Thus scien-
tific literacy is aligned with such movements as environ-
mental education; Science, Technology, and Society (STS);
Science, Technology, Society, and Environment (STSE);
Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI); and, as well, any other edu-
cational and curricular efforts that systematically link an
understanding of the scientific enterprise to socioscientific
issues.
The Two Visions and Their Terminology
Exemplified
The most important feature for distinguishing between
Vision I and Vision II is the overarching purpose for
which a student is to learn scientific meaning—especially
whether there is consideration of personal and societal per-
spectives as mentioned above. Recently, Vision I is most
notably associated with AAAS Project 2061 and with the
term science literacy. In Vision I, the reason for learning
science is presumed to be self-evident, essentially. Science
has been a powerful instrument for understanding the nat-
ural world. The defining instance of Vision I, in our view,
is the AAAS Project 2061 characterization as it appears in
the project’s flagship in-house publication Science for All
Americans. The overarching purpose for learning science
is found next in the fourth bullet—namely that science is
the preferred and sufficient way to think about situations
that have personal and societal components.
The scientifically literate person is one who:
• is aware that science, mathematics, and technology
are interdependent enterprises with strengths and
limitations,
• understands key concepts and principles of science,
• is familiar with the natural world and recognizes both
its diversity and unity, and
• uses scientific knowledge and scientific ways of think-
ing for individual and social purposes.
(American Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1989, p. 4)
In the more readily available version of Science for
All Americans (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991), published
a bit later by Oxford University Press, this definition was
not changed. However, the term scientific literacy was
changed to science literacy throughout the volume. The
latter term has been used consistently in all Project 2061
 Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education
documents published since that time. Whatever else the
name change accomplished, it gave Project 2061 philos-
ophy and publications a distinctive brand in science
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education—free from the potential confusion arising from
the morass of scientific literacy definitions.
Vision II is exemplified by the following remarkably
different characterization of a scientifically literate per-
son, as embodied in an ongoing research and development
project in England called Twenty First Century Science.
We would expect a scientifically literate person to be able to:
• appreciate and understand the impact of science and
technology on everyday life,
• take informed personal decisions about things that
involve science, such as health, diet, use of energy
resources,
• read and understand the essential points of media
reports about matters that involve science,
• reflect critically on the information included in, and
(often more important) omitted from, such reports, and
• take part confidently in discussions with others about
issues involving science.
(Twenty First Century Science, retrieved
February 9, 2013: www.nuffieldfoundation.
org/twenty-first-century-science)
Notice that the fourth point in the Project 2061 char-
acterization concentrates attention on but one perspective
on a situation—the scientific perspective—as the way to
think about issues associated with “individual and social
purposes.” In other words, by default (since no other per-
spective is mentioned), students are encouraged to under-
stand situations as a scientist does. By contrast, in the
Twenty First Century Science characterization, there is a
clear implication that other perspectives are appropriate
and necessary as well to understand such situations.
Opportunity to Learn (OTL) Vision II:
Sample Curriculum Arrangements
The original purpose for defining and clarifying scientific
literacy had to do with providing appropriate school sci-
ence for students who were not inclined to pursue pre-
professional science studies of the type we have been
designating Vision I. In short, Vision II would be a dif-
ferent kind of curriculum for the students Klopfer (1969)
referred to as the “SL stream,” where SL stands for sci-
entific literacy. (Klopfer estimated that the SL stream
would include 90% of school students, an estimate con-
sistent with that of many other authors.) Obviously, such
an arrangement implies labeling students and, potentially,
segregating them, which can have educational disadvan-
tages. Yet the persistent dilemma for science teachers is
simply that the SL stream of students is more often than
not being taught in the same classroom as students who
are quite comfortable with early science specialist training
(Klopfer’s PS or “potential scientist” stream). Contrari-
wise, some of the attention to scientific literacy has been
547
animated by a concern—expressed by the slogan “science
for all”—that all students, including the potential scientist
group, should have some grounding in discussing issues
through personal and societal perspectives that are part of
Vision II. (All students are in fact future citizens.) This
section explores two curricular arrangements that provide
opportunities to learn science according to Vision II with-
out losing the advantages of Vision I for the “potential
scientist” group.
A Separate SL Course: Twenty First
Century Science
An ongoing project, drawing in large part on the ground-
breaking report titled Beyond 2000 (Millar & Osborne,
1998), tackled this problem head-on in England. Millar
(2006) comments thus: “Many curricula, the report argues,
attempt to achieve both purposes—with the pre-profes-
sional training emphasis invariably coming to have a domi-
nant and distorting influence on the whole” (p. 1505). In
the Twenty First Century Science project, the two purposes
have been separated or “unhooked” from each other for a
part of every student’s time, in the following way.
The first of the 10 recommendations in Beyond 2000
states: “The science curriculum from [age] 5 to 16 should
be seen primarily as a course to enhance general ‘scientific
literacy’” (Millar & Osborne, 1998, p. 9). The curricular
arrangement to accomplish this goal is anticipated in the
second recommendation: “At Key Stage 4 [North Ameri-
can grades 9–10], the structure of the science curriculum
needs to differentiate more explicitly between those ele-
ments designed to enhance ‘scientific literacy’, and those
designed as the early stages of a specialist training in sci-
ence, so that the requirement for the latter does not come
to distort the former” (Millar & Osborne, 1998, p. 10). A
special course on scientific literacy (SL) was developed
with structure and content that was characterized earlier
in this chapter as a defining instance of Vision II. The
course would be required of all students before they com-
plete their compulsory or General Certificate of Second-
ary Education (GCSE) schooling (15- and 16-year-olds),
taking up half of their science time (science is 20% of the
curriculum). Options would be provided for the other half
to accommodate diversified interests in future general and
applied science study.
The first pilot study of the project began in September
2003. There are several very thorough descriptions of the
design, intent, and content of the special SL course (e.g.,
Millar, 2006, 2010, 2012; Osborne, 2007b). These also
report on developing research about the impact of the project,
which has been substantial. To the best of our knowledge,
the SL course in the Twenty First Century Science project
is the only one of its kind.
Incorporating Opportunity to Learn for Both
Vision I and II
A different curricular arrangement used to provide oppor-
tunities to learn both visions gives equal status to Visions I
 548 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee
and II according to their overall educational purpose.
The technique for doing so is to systematically embed
the learning of science subject matter in different learn-
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ing contexts, so that students learn both at the same time.
Science curriculum revision that recognizes this approach
has been underway in Canada for more than a decade.
Canada does not have a national curriculum. Jurisdiction
over educational matters resides with the governments of
the 10 provinces and 3 territories. Most recently, science
curriculum revision has been stimulated by a nationwide
“framework” (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada
[CMEC], 1997) to which provincial ministers of educa-
tion subscribed in hopes of providing common ground
and more consistency in learning outcomes for school sci-
ence across the country. The framework “is guided by the
vision that all Canadian students, regardless of gender or
cultural background, will have an opportunity to develop
scientific literacy” (p. 4). Scientific literacy (SL) is defined
as “an evolving combination of the science-related atti-
tudes, skills, and knowledge students need to develop
inquiry, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities,
to become lifelong learners, and to maintain a sense of
wonder about the world around them” (p. 4, italics added
to stress the intended links between context and science
subject matter).
The definition is made operational by specifying four
“foundation statements,” one each for skills, knowledge, and
attitudes, and a fourth for “science, technology, society, and
the environment (STSE)” (CMEC, 1997, p. 6). According to
the document, acquisition of science-related skills, knowl-
edge, and attitudes “is best done through the study and
analysis of the interrelationships among science, technol-
ogy, society, and the environment (STSE)” (p. iii). Implicit
in that statement, and more explicit in several provincially
mandated curricula based on it, are two important features
of the meaning of SL. First, the “science-related skills,
knowledge, and attitudes” specified in the respective foun-
dation statements for those three areas are to be developed
through the STSE situations and challenges comprising the
fourth. That is, the expectation is that curricula, instruc-
tional materials, and teachers will provide opportunities for
students to learn about STSE interrelationships at the same
time they are learning science subject matter, skills, and
attitudes. This simultaneous learning is envisioned as hap-
pening through contextual communication and learning, in
which units of science subject matter are organized to stress
one of three “broad areas of emphasis”:
• a science inquiry emphasis, in which students address
questions about the nature of things, involving broad
exploration as well as focussed investigations [this is
an emphasis on the nature of science, thus acknowl-
edging the importance of Vision I];
• a problem-solving emphasis, in which students seek
answers to practical problems requiring the applica-
tion of their science knowledge in new ways [this is an
emphasis on science and technology, thus a mixture of
Visions I and II];
• a decision-making emphasis, in which students identify
questions or issues and pursue scientific knowledge that
will inform the question or issue [this is an emphasis on
socio-scientific issues, thus stressing Vision II].”
(CMEC, 1997, p. 8)
Second, although this is not stated explicitly in the docu-
ment, these three areas of emphasis correspond to an Aris-
totelian distinction among three different human purposes
for discourse, namely seeking warranted knowledge, mak-
ing beautiful and useful things, and arriving at defensible
decisions. Here, we shall use the terms theoria, techne,
and praxis, respectively, to identify the three. A different
pattern of reasoning—and therefore a different classroom
discourse—is characteristic of each, and the skill set asso-
ciated with each emphasis is identified accordingly. Hence
SL is operationally defined as the student’s grasp of not
only the way science itself permeates human affairs across
this broad trilogy of purposes but also how the relationship
of science is different for each. (Predating the publication
of the Pan-Canadian framework, this organization of a sci-
ence curriculum policy was implemented in the province
of Alberta, as described by Roberts, 1995).
The Significance of Discourse: The
Socio-Scientific Issues Program (SSI)
Sets an Example
The trilogy of theoria, techne, and praxis is based on
acknowledging that a different kind of discourse is appro-
priate to the three different ends in view, each expressing
a different domain of human purpose. Three correspond-
ing patterns of reasoning are appropriate for the three
domains.
• A theoretical reasoning pattern is appropriate when
one intends to establish warranted knowledge. Scien-
tific reasoning and scientific activity aim for this end in
view. The discourse is epistemic.
• A technological reasoning pattern is appropriate when
one intends to design and produce useful and beautiful
things—a bridge, a building, a symphony, a sculpture.
Reasoning patterns in engineering, architecture, and
the arts aim for this end in view. The discourse is proce-
dural and productive, heavily slanted toward designing
and testing “what works.”
• A practical reasoning pattern is appropriate when one
intends to arrive at defensible value-laden decisions
that impact other people. This discourse includes per-
sonal and societal perspectives that can be, for exam-
ple, economic, political, ethical, and moral in character.
This pattern is an essential part of scientific literacy just
because most science-related events and issues have an
impact on people. The discourse is deliberative.
The extent to which a school science classroom is pro-
viding opportunities to learn about Vision I or Vision II can
 Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education
be gauged by the presence or absence of one or more of
these three reasoning patterns and the different discourses
associated with them. In short, no discourse means no
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opportunities to learn or, as Kelly (2011) has pointed out,
students need to experience and practice these discourses
if they are to learn and comprehend them.
Needed: Opportunities to Learn
a Different Discourse
Theoretical and technological discourses are probably the
most familiar to science teachers. Yet Osborne cautions as
follows, regarding theoretical discourse (scientific reason-
ing), the most familiar one.
The correlate of the argument that learning science means
learning to talk science is that learning to reason scientifi-
cally means asking students to reason scientifically. In the
case of empirical work, observation of science lessons in
England indicated that much of the time spent on practical
work is devoted to carrying out the practical procedures
themselves. . . . [I]f we want our students to develop the
ability to think critically about scientific evidence, then
we must offer them that opportunity.
(Osborne, 2007b, pp. 178–179)
If this lack of opportunities to learn is the case for the
familiar discourse of scientific reasoning (and we agree
that it is, in many classrooms), imagine the bleak situation
with respect to technological (e.g., engineering) discourse
and the even more bleak prospects for the least familiar of
the three, namely practical discourse. It is also the most
inclusive and complex of the three, and its absence or
misrepresentation in socioscientific contexts is arguably
the most serious threat to the survival of Vision II. (See
Gauthier, 1963, for a widely respected classic treatment
of practical reasoning. Closer to the present concern, see
Orpwood, 1998, for an analysis and example of practi-
cal reasoning in the context of science curriculum policy
debate.)
Taking Discourse Seriously: The Socio-
Scientific Issues Program
Typically, practical reasoning discourse includes some
combination of such personal and societal perspectives as
ethical, legal, political, and moral considerations. A robust
research and development program in this area (consider-
ably more modern than Aristotle) has been underway with
a steady stream of publications for more than a decade: the
Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) program undertaken by Dana
Zeidler, Troy Sadler, and their colleagues. There is not
space to describe the significance of the contributions this
program is making to science education in general and to
Vision II scientific literacy in particular (but see Zeidler’s
chapter in the current volume). We wish to focus here on
the nature of discourse development and the qualities of
the discourse to which students become accustomed in the
SSI program.
549
In describing the foundations of the program, Zeidler
and Sadler (2011) point out the significance of multiple
perspectives thus (italics original).
In positioning perspectives as an aspect of socio-scientific
reasoning, we suggest that exploring issues from the van-
tage of different perspectives constitutes a critical com-
ponent of the thoughtful negotiation of SSI. The goal for
student practice would be to move from conceptualizing
SSI only from one’s own personal framework toward
the ability to analyze issues and potential solutions from
diverse perspectives.
(Zeidler & Sadler, 2011, p. 186)
Elsewhere they raise a caution about a typical
alternative.
When educators want to use real world issues related to
science as vehicles for engaging students in meaningful
learning experiences, they ought not attempt to distill the
science and discard other elements of the issues which
may be seen as beyond the boundaries of traditional
science.
(Sadler & Zeidler, 2009, p. 912)
Sadler (2009) has described how the SSI program
relates to situated learning (see, e.g., Lave & Wenger,
1991) by characterizing the nature of socioscientific issues
as presenting
ill-structured problems [that] do not have single correct
answers . . . Socio-scientific issues also tend to be contro-
versial . . . because of their connections to society. Issues
that have the potential to affect the lives of individuals
with competing perspectives and priorities generate both
interest and controversy. . . . These issues can be informed
by scientific data and theory, but they are also subject to
economic, social, political and/or ethical considerations.
(Sadler, 2009, p. 11)
Sadler also situates SSI in the chaos of scientific literacy
definitions thus: “Ryder’s (2001) analysis of ‘functional
scientific literacy’ provides an empirically derived descrip-
tion of the kinds of Discourses expected of communities of
practice engaged in the negotiation and resolution of SSI”
(Sadler, 2009, p. 12).
How the 2012 U.S. Framework for K–12
Science Education Withdraws From Vision II
We focus on this United States document for two reasons.
(a) It is current and is very much a part of science educa-
tion in the United States at this time. Also (b) it provides
an opportunity to demonstrate a theoretical framework and
methodology for stimulating discussion of the differences
between Visions I and II as drivers of science education pol-
icy and the potential impacts of making a choice between
them.
It seems clear that removing personal and societal per-
spectives from classroom consideration would seriously
 550 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee
weaken the central meaning of Vision II. Yet consider the
following.
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There is an important, and often unquestioned, assump-
tion about achieving .  .  . the ability to apply scientific
knowledge in life situations. . . . “If an individual knows
enough science, he or she will apply that knowledge in
life situations.” Stated another way, there is an assump-
tion that scientific knowledge directly influences personal
decisions and behaviours.
(Bybee & McCrae, 2011, p. 8)
Jon Miller, whose work on measuring scientific literacy
still enjoys a certain cachet in the United States and inter-
nationally, has asserted this view repeatedly (see Miller,
2000, or Roberts, 2007, pp. 760–762, for a more extensive
discussion of Miller’s work). Such a “stripping down” of
Vision II is not unusual in practice, especially when sci-
ence teachers feel pressed for time and search for some-
thing to leave out of a crowded curriculum. As a matter
of policy, however, we want to be quite clear that this
represents a choice of Vision I over Vision II—not simply
the hope that Vision II goals can be accomplished through
Vision I practice. Instead, this choice eliminates a vital
part of Vision II, namely an understanding of practical rea-
soning about science-related personal and societal issues.
Marginalizing Practical Reasoning
in Science Education
The position that a scientific perspective is sufficient for
understanding and dealing with science-related issues is not
new, of course. (See the earlier discussion of the AAAS def-
inition of science literacy.) A Framework for K–12 Science
Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core
Ideas (National Research Council, 2012) reveals that such a
choice has been made deliberately. The document specifies
(p. 13) that “the social, behavioral, and economic sciences
are not fully addressed” in this science education document.
Rather, “many of the topics related to the social, behavioral,
and economic sciences are incorporated into curricula
of courses identified as social studies and may be taught
from a humanities perspective.” Compared to the previous
National Science Education Standards (National Research
Council, 1996), the new NRC Framework—which is the
foundation for the NGSS (Next Generation Science Stan-
dards, released in the spring of 2013)—has made a very
important shift from the central role of Vision II in the 1996
document (cf. Roberts 2007, pp. 747–748). One indicator
of the changes in the new Framework document is that
the terms science literacy and scientific literacy are men-
tioned only in a token way. A second indicator is a stress
on both theoretical and technological discourse patterns,
but no mention of personal and societal perspectives (hence,
no practical reasoning) in the treatment of socioscientific
issues and decision making about science-related situa-
tions. The “Disciplinary Core Ideas” that touch on science-
society issues in the document do not include personal and
societal perspectives. The area in which one would expect
to find these is the five Core and Component Ideas in Engi-
neering, Technology, and Applications of Science, starting
on p. 201. The Core idea titled “Influence of Engineering,
Technology, and Science on Society and the Natural World”
is at least suggestive that personal and societal perspectives
might be included, but instead treats socioscientific matters
and issues rather dismissively as by-products of the work of
science and technology.
It is worth displaying in full the “Definitions of Science,
Technology, and Applications of Science” from p. 202 (bold
type original, our italics, with our comments interspersed).
“Technology is any modification of the natural world
made to fulfill human needs or desires.”
“Engineering is a systematic and often iterative
approach to designing objects, processes, and sys-
tems to meet human needs and wants.”
Comment: For both definitions, a technological reason-
ing pattern is appropriate as part of the opportuni-
ties to learn about technology.
“An application of science is any use of scientific
knowledge for a scientific purpose, whether to do
more science . . .”
Comment: So far this is using a theoretical reasoning
pattern.
“. . . to design a new process, product, or medical treat-
ment, to develop a new technology . . .”
Comment: Those four—design a new process, product,
treatment, or technology—would arise from using a
technological reasoning pattern.
“. . . or to predict the impacts of human actions.”
Comment: This is not practical reasoning: “Predicting
the impacts” is not the same as deliberating over a
socioscientific issue, including considerations that
fall within perspectives other than scientific and
technological.
This document is an example of withdrawing from
Vision II by “purifying” science education policy through
purging the attention to personal and societal perspectives.
By staying strictly with scientific and engineering aspects
of the issues, this document does precisely what Sadler
and Zeidler (2009, p. 912) warned about, as mentioned
earlier: “they ought not attempt to distill the science and
discard other elements of the issues which may be seen as
beyond the boundaries of traditional science.”
The inclusion of engineering along with “pure” science
is a noteworthy achievement because technological rea-
soning is being stressed in addition to theoretical reason-
ing, consistent with the widespread adoption of STEM as
shorthand for the current title of integrated school science:
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The
justification for including engineering is shown, in part,
by this statement:
Scientists and engineers often work together in realms,
especially in new fields, such as nanotechnology or
 Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education
synthetic biology and blur the lines between science and
engineering. Students should come to understand these
interactions and at increasing levels of sophistication as
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they mature. Their appreciation of the interface of science,
engineering, and society should give them deeper insights
into local, national, and global issues.
(National Research Council, 2012, p. 203)
The Discourse of Public Engagement
With Science: Science Insiders and
Science Outsiders
Feinstein (2011) has developed a provocative critique of
scientific literacy/science literacy (he makes no distinc-
tion) in which he “examines . . . the very specific notion
that science education can help people solve personally
meaningful problems in their lives, directly affect their
material and social circumstances, shape their behavior,
and inform their most significant practical and political
decisions” (Feinstein, 2011, p. 169). The thrust of his
argument is that there is an “empirical vacuum” around
this notion—that is, “our field has produced very little evi-
dence” about how people actually use science in this way.
Nevertheless,
I suggest that we do not need to abandon the . . . vision of
a competent citizenry that can cope with science-related
real-life challenges. . . . We do need to examine how peo-
ple actually use science in daily life and . . . pay attention
to research on public engagement with science.
(Feinstein, 2011, p. 170)
Feinstein analyzes some examples of the use of science
in everyday life that have “the potential to transform our
notions of science literacy” (e.g., Layton, Jenkins, Macgill, &
Davey (1993), and Roth and Lee (2002). These are exam-
ples of actual empirical studies of the usefulness (or not)
of science education for understanding everyday problems
and events. They lead in a direction “relatively novel in
the context of science education, [but] not new to social
research. In particular, they echo some of the central find-
ings from another field: public engagement with science”
(Feinstein, 2011, p. 177). Engagement with science, he
contends, is simply the connection between
science and lived experience. It is . . . the act of an out-
sider [italics added]. People do not engage with science
by removing themselves from their own social contexts
and asking, “what would a scientist do?” They do not, for
the most part, seek to become scientific insiders [italics
added]. They remain anchored outside of science, reach-
ing in for bits and pieces that enrich their understanding
of their own lives.
(Feinstein, 2011, p. 180)
Feinstein concludes his argument with significant
recommendations.
I propose that science literate people are competent
outsiders [italics original] with respect to science: peo-
ple who have learned to recognize the moments when
551
science has some bearing on their needs and interest
and to interact with sources of scientific expertise in
ways that help them achieve their own goals. [Thus] the
pursuit of science literacy is not incidentally but funda-
mentally about identifying relevance. . . . The idea of the
competent outsider also draws attention to the fact that
we are currently doing something very different: produc-
ing marginal insiders. These are students who have sat
through a long parade of concepts and theories. .  .  . A
small number will go on to be real scientific insiders, but
for most, this glimpse is all they will get. As I observed at
the outset of this essay, there is little evidence that such
abridged familiarity with science translates into everyday
competence.
(Feinstein, 2011, pp. 180–181, italics original)
Feinstein’s critique echoes and sharpens the concerns
we have expressed, following Bybee and MacRae (2011),
about the assumption that knowing science (in the Vision
I sense) will automatically enable students to deal with
Vision II situations. (Alas, in Feinstein’s essay there is
some confusion about the two visions, but that is immate-
rial to our purpose here.) We find it surprising that Fein-
stein makes no mention of Twenty First Century Science
or the Socio-Scientific Issues Project, both of which can
be seen to be doing just what he suggests—that is, teach-
ing students to use the kind of “outsider” discourse and
skills associated with effective public engagement with
science.
PISA 2015: Gradual Withdrawal
From Vision II
Originating in 1997, and well known to science educators
around the world, the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) represents an ongoing commitment
by member countries of the Organisation for Economic
Co-Operation and Development (OECD) to monitor edu-
cational outcomes in reading, mathematics, and science.
PISA tests 15-year-old students in participating countries
once every 3 years. The three domains rotate between
major and minor emphasis in the assessments. Reading
was the major emphasis in 2000, and mathematics was the
emphasis in 2003. In 2006, science was the major domain.
The previous review (Roberts, 2007) and this update
are both concerned only with the conceptualization of sci-
entific literacy (SL) inherent in the science assessment.
The conceptualization of SL initially adopted for PISA
stated: “Scientific literacy is the capacity to use scientific
knowledge, to identify questions and to draw evidence-
based conclusions in order to understand and help make
decisions about the natural world and the changes made
to it through human activity” (OECD, 1999, p. 60). The
meaning of and the purpose for including particular
phrases in the definition, such as scientific knowledge and
evidence-based conclusions, are elaborated in the OECD
documents and, as well, in two very informative papers by
Harlen (2001a, 2001b).
 552 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee

The following points about the conceptualization para- • awareness of how science and technology shape our
phrase Harlen (2001b). material, intellectual, and cultural environments
• willingness to engage in science-related issues and
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• This conceptualization of SL is about what learners
should achieve in terms of their needs as citizens—
“understanding that will improve their future lives”
(Harlen, 2001b, p. 87). This suggests a view that future
scientists also need such understanding.
• The roots of SL are in school experience, even though
it can be “developed throughout life” (Harlen, 2001b,
p. 87), a point that recognizes the significance of infor-
mal science education.
• SL is not equated with vocabulary, but connotes “gen-
eral competence or being ‘at ease’ with scientific ways
of understanding” (Harlen, 2001b, p. 87). This also
suggests a broader, different kind of understanding
than suggested by knowing how to “do science.”
• A key feature of a student’s SL is skillfulness at relating
evidence to claims: how evidence is used and collected
in science, “what makes some evidence more depend-
able than other, what are its shortcomings, and where it
can and should be applied” (Harlen, 2001b, p. 87).
• This SL conceptualization contextualizes scientific
knowledge and scientific thinking in relation to prob-
lems, issues, and situations “in the real world” (Harlen,
2001b, p. 91)—thus students can apply what they learn
in laboratory settings to nonschool settings.
Assessments based on this conceptualization of SL
were conducted in 2000 and 2003 (OECD, 2003, p. 133).
Preparing for PISA 2006 presented an opportunity to
revise the science framework, as this was the first time
science would be a major domain. The Science Forum
and the Science Expert Group, the former responsible for
advising and the latter responsible for developing specific
aspects of the framework, revised the 2000/2003 frame-
work. The 2006 background, rationale, and conceptualiza-
tion of SL are described in Assessing Scientific, Reading,
and Mathematical Literacy (OECD, 2006).
In the 2006 PISA, scientific literacy referred to an
individual’s
• scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to iden-
tify questions, to acquire new knowledge, to explain
scientific phenomena, and to draw evidence-based con-
clusions about science-related issues
• understanding of the characteristic features of science
as a form of human knowledge and inquiry
with the ideas of science as a reflective citizen
The conceptualization for SL in 2006 was maintained
for 2009 and 2012 assessments of PISA. The 2006 con-
ceptualization is clearly specifying Vision II as the basis
for PISA. From the beginning, the PISA project has con-
centrated on assessment within life situations. The 2006,
2009, and 2012 frameworks emphasized and strengthened
that intention.
Science again will be a major domain for PISA 2015.
A new framework was prepared for PISA 2015 (OECD,
2013) and the conception of SL as the central construct for
that assessment was reviewed and revised. Following is a
definition of SL for PISA Science 2015.
Scientific literacy is the ability to engage with science-
related issues and with the ideas of science as a reflec-
tive citizen. A scientifically literate person, therefore, is
willing to engage with science-related issues in reasoned
discourse about science and technology, which requires
the competencies to:
1. Explain phenomena scientifically:
• recognize, offer and evaluate explanations for a
range of natural and technological phenomena
2. Understand scientific enquiry:
• recognize, describe and evaluate the design, practices
and conduct of scientific enquiry
3. Interpret scientific evidence:
• analyze and evaluate scientific information, claims,
and arguments in a variety of representations and
draw appropriate conclusions
Contrasts among 2000, 2006, and 2015 conceptions of
SL are subtle but notable. For purposes of comparison,
competencies are presented in Table 27.1.
We propose that scientific literacy, as expressed in
Vision II, has reduced emphasis in 2015 compared to both
2000 and 2006. The basis for this proposal can be seen
in the sets of competencies. Note, for example, that in
PISA 2000 and 2006 science, there was a clear emphasis
on the identification of scientific questions and the use
of scientific knowledge (2000) or evidence (2006). In
contrast, the 2015 framework gives greater emphasis to
understanding scientific inquiry, and interpreting scien-
tific evidence.

TABLE 27.1
SL Competencies 2000 to 2015
2000 Competencies for 2006 Competencies for 2015 Competencies for
Scientific Literacy Scientific Literacy Scientific Literacy
• Use scientific knowledge • Identify scientific issues • Explain phenomena scientifically
• Identify questions • Explain phenomena scientifically • Understand scientific inquiry
• Draw evidence-based conclusions • Use scientific evidence • Interpret scientific evidence
 Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education
The 2015 definition of scientific literacy has deeper and
broader clarification of procedural and epistemic knowl-
edge. It seems these changes shifted emphasis to under-
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standing the internal processes of science, away from the
application of scientific knowledge to situations external
to science. The shift is toward the AAAS definition of
“science literacy” presented earlier in this chapter as a
defining instance of Vision I.
Citizens encounter science not in its pure form but in
personal, local, and global contexts and life situations.
This view is consistent with Vision II of scientific literacy.
The 2015 framework for PISA science has very elaborate
discussions of three variations of scientific knowledge:
(1) content knowledge, (2) procedural knowledge, and
(3) epistemic knowledge. These dimensions of scientific
knowledge are the basis for the three competencies. While
the discussions of scientific knowledge have been clarified
and deepened, it seems that the application of scientific
knowledge in life situations has been de-emphasized as a
basic construct for scientific literacy and by extension for
PISA Science 2015.
The Many Perspectives and Broad Scope
of Vision II
The several examples of withdrawal from Vision II have
shown a reduced emphasis on the “nonscientific” per-
spectives on issues, such as the personal and societal
perspectives. In this section, we review how Vision II
developed—that is, how those perspectives became a part
of an orientation to school science. There is a more com-
plete history of this aspect of scientific literacy (SL, for
purposes of this section) in the earlier review (Roberts,
2007).
The early historical development of the term SL shows
a remarkable diversity of definitions. A useful starting
point for making sense of this apparent chaos is to exam-
ine SL according to the logic of educational slogans. That
is, the term was introduced in professional science edu-
cation literature as a slogan—a way to rally support for
re-examining the purposes of school science in the United
States’ postwar period of the 1950s (see, e.g., Hurd, 1958).
At first, the SL discussion was primarily (although not
entirely) on behalf of curriculum planning for the “90%
of students” who are not “potential scientists” and who
should therefore experience a “scientific literacy stream”
(Klopfer, 1969). It was, in other words, a serious effort to
establish the meaning of an alternative to Vision I.
From Slogan to Accommodating
Multiple Definitions
Slogans don’t help professional science educators get
on with their research and the practical work of specify-
ing policy, planning programs, organizing teaching, and
designing assessment. Definitions are needed instead.
Between the late 1950s and the early 1980s, a very sub-
stantial amount of science education literature in North
553
America contained analyses and views about the defini-
tion of SL. This is a characteristic feature of the logic of
educational slogans. That is, slogans must be interpreted;
thus anyone moving (in the logical sense) from slogan to
definition provides his or her own interpretation—within
reasonable bounds. It is therefore not at all surprising that
definitions appeared in abundance and in considerable
variety.
Several authors attempted to consolidate the definitions
of this era into a synthesis that represented the meaning
of SL by accommodating the contributions of the sci-
ence education community. Three illustrative papers
are selected, all based on the work of science education
authors in the United States (see Bybee, 1997, chapters
3 and 4, for a more extensive review and analysis of the
accommodating character of the American literature of
this era), including the statements of professional associa-
tions such as the (U.S.) National Science Teachers Asso-
ciation (NSTA).
In 1966, Milton Pella and his colleagues in the Sci-
entific Literacy Center at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison reported a study of the “referents” authors had
made to SL. On the basis of a comprehensive literature
analysis, they identified 100 papers for further analysis
and characterized SL with a composite picture based on
six referents:
The scientifically literate individual presently is charac-
terized as one with an understanding of the basic concepts
in science, nature of science, ethics that control the sci-
entist in his [sic] work, interrelationships of science and
society, interrelationships of science and the humanities,
[and] differences between science and technology.
(Pella, O’Hearn, & Gale, 1966, p. 206)
Building on Pella’s analysis and continuing the theme
of accommodation/consolidation, 8 years later Michael
Agin expressed the following concern. “Many individu-
als use the term ‘scientific literacy’ but fail to give it an
adequate meaning .  .  . A frame of reference should be
established to help consolidate and summarize the many
definitions” (Agin, 1974, p. 405). Agin used Pella’s six
categories to organize his own framework, drawing on
even more literature (much of it post–1966) to embel-
lish the categories by adding “selected dimensions” from
among “the concerns and opinions of scientists and sci-
ence educators” (Agin, 1974, p. 407).
An exhaustive example of seeking accommoda-
tion in the literature of this time is the doctoral study by
Lawrence Gabel (1976). Gabel developed a theoretical
model of SL based for the most part on statements of or
suggestions about science education objectives related to
interpretations of SL. His model expanded (refined, actu-
ally) Pella’s six categories to eight, which constituted one
dimension of a matrix. The other dimension included the
six major categories of cognitive objectives and three
categories of affective objectives from Bloom’s taxono-
mies. Gabel reported that from the literature he was able
 554 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee
to find examples for all but 16 of the 72 cells in this matrix
(Gabel, 1976, p. 92). He provided examples of the miss-
ing ones himself to complete a consolidated picture of all
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of the possible objectives associated with SL—which, of
course, is why it is a theoretical model, despite its substan-
tial empirical basis for 56 of the cells (the complete matrix
is shown in Gabel, 1976, p. 93). Thus did SL become an
umbrella concept with the varied, composite meaning that
ultimately gave Vision II its broad sweep. The aim of all
this effort was to develop a concept that was comprehen-
sive enough to guide curriculum making for all students
and that also accommodated the thinking of the science
education community of the time.
A related but slightly different approach to analyzing
the history of SL is to start with significant events in the
educational history and culture of science education, espe-
cially the changing societal demands on the curriculum.
The purpose of this approach is to understand how events
have made a difference in science education policy state-
ments over time, with specific reference to SL. DeBoer
(1991, chapter 6) provides an excellent example of such
analysis in the United States. (See also Bybee & DeBoer,
1994; Matthews, 1994, chapter 3). Along the same con-
ceptual and methodological lines, Jenkins (1990) has
developed an account of the evolution of the SL concept
in England.
Returning about a decade later to the historical events
approach, DeBoer (2000) used as the significant event
for his analysis the mid-1990s onset of standards-based
reform efforts in the United States. He presents nine sum-
mary statements of science education goals that represent
“a wide range of meanings of scientific literacy” (DeBoer,
2000, p. 591), essentially echoing Gabel’s finding of a
quarter century earlier to the effect that SL has now come
to mean one, all, or some combination of the major goals
to which science educators subscribe. DeBoer comments
as follows, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the ini-
tial intent of the SL slogan: “The one specific thing we can
conclude is that scientific literacy has usually implied a
broad and functional understanding of science for general
education purposes and not preparation for specific scien-
tific and technical careers” (DeBoer, 2000, p. 594).
Reflections on the Accommodation Approach
There is something comforting about a historical synthesis
of definitions for an educational slogan such as SL. One
gets a sense that despite the diversity of its definitions,
SL did after all express a unity of purpose and meaning
for science education by the beginning of the 1980s. In
one sense, that is accurate. The focus of SL in the science
education literature shifted from an image of curriculum
appropriate solely for non–science-oriented students to
aspects of science education appropriate for all students.
However, varied use of the term SL and definitional
activity did not cease. Bybee (1997) points out that during
the 1980s, in the United States, “the term [SL] began to
take on a symbolic value distinct from its past conceptual
development because individuals used it in a variety of
ways” (Bybee, 1997, p. 59). This resulted in a renewed
increase in the definitional literature. It also shifted the
meaning back to a distinction between Vision I and
Vision II. Pressure for proliferation came from the need
for the original Vision II to meet a variety of challenges to
science education worldwide during the 1980s. Fensham
(1992) offers the example that many countries had begun
retaining a higher percentage of young people in school
for a longer time. As these students reached senior lev-
els of schooling, it became increasingly imperative to pay
attention to a curriculum in science that made provision
for a “scientifically literate citizenry” as well as a “scien-
tifically based work force” (Fensham, 1992, pp. 793–795).
(The reader can refer to Bybee, 1997, and DeBoer, 2000,
for accounts of further elaboration of the SL concept into
the 1990s.)
Whither Science Education? Tentative
Explanations and Implications
It is obvious that the overall character of science educa-
tion is significantly affected by the choice of one vision or
another of scientific literacy. One way to keep that educa-
tional image broad and general is to use a composite defi-
nition of the type developed by Pella and his colleagues,
as presented earlier. A second possibility is to make provi-
sion for all students to experience Vision II in a separate
required course, as the Twenty First Century Science proj-
ect has done in England.
It seems to us that more concern was being expressed
about the clarity of SL at the time of the earlier review
chapter (Roberts, 2007) than is now apparent. In particular,
the need to counterbalance the influence of Vision I and
make school science education more relevant and acces-
sible was a clear aim. The review was used as part of the
discussion material for a major research conference on
scientific literacy held in May 2007 at Uppsala Univer-
sity, Sweden, during a celebration of the 300th birthday of
Carolus Linnaeus. Twenty distinguished science educators
from around the world made presentations of their research
and agreed to a Statement of Concern about the condition
of science education worldwide, including the following
points (Linder, Östman, & Wickman, 2007, p. 1):
• Many students find little of interest in science and
actually express an active dislike of it
• Compared to other subjects, science is seen as a trans-
mission of facts of little relevance and more difficult
than other school subjects
• School experience leads to loss of interest in science
and technology as career possibilities, and only a
mildly positive sense of their social importance.
The presentations and discussion over the 2 days of the
symposium ranged across many aspects of the potential
of Vision II to counteract the aforementioned concerns.
The book published as a result of the symposium consists
 Scientific Literacy, Science Literacy, and Science Education
of 18 chapters prepared by 34 authors from 10 different
countries (Linder et al., 2011). Some presentations were
not elaborated for publication in the book but are avail-
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able in the published Proceedings (Linder, Östman, &
Wickman, 2007). Osborne’s contribution in the Proceed-
ings underscored the need to counterbalance Vision I as
follows:
Transforming the pedagogy of school science is [a]
major challenge. . . . [S]uch pedagogy is a consequence
of two features—one is a collective culturally embed-
ded notion of what it means to teach science . . . [and]
an assessment system which overwhelmingly values the
reproduction of factual information as the best measure
of a knowledge and understanding of science. . . . Politi-
cians need to realise that the values embedded in those
systems are resulting in an experience of school sci-
ence which leads to the very effect that most concerns
them—the flight of contemporary youth from school
science.
(Osborne 2007a, pp. 109–110).
Four Possible Reasons One Might Use
Vision I as the Default
The impact of a “vision” of scientific literacy—how one
envisions the individual as a result of his or her science edu-
cation—cannot be overestimated. A vision, in the sense we
are using the term, is a highly significant—indeed, control-
ling—part of a curriculum policy image (Roberts, 2011),
which, in turn, has the potential to affect every aspect of
curriculum, course development, and implementation by
teachers. In that long cascade of events, there are many
spots where Vision I can exert its powerful grip on school
science and assume its “rightful” place as the default image
for science education. Here we advance tentative explana-
tions for the reduced emphasis on Vision II, arising from
our review.
1. Vision II might be rejected not necessarily on its own
terms but because curriculum decisions are increas-
ingly in the hands of bureaucrats rather than pro-
fessional science educators. Bureaucrats tend to be
focused primarily on accountability; Vision I mea-
sures are not as complex as those for Vision II.
Fensham (2012) has called attention to the increased
role played by bureaucrats, as opposed to experts, in moni-
toring the accountability of school systems, teachers, and
curriculum reform. He illustrates the shift, based on five
case studies of science education in Australia, noting “the
rise in a number of countries of a market view of educa-
tion, and of science education in particular, accompanied
by demands for public accountability via simplistic audit-
ing measures” (Fensham, 2012, p. 1).
2. Vision II might be seen as simply too broad to be
taught as school science. In this view, personal and
555
societal considerations are more appropriate for social
studies, and school science should be restricted to
“science-like” perspectives.
The withdrawal from personal and societal perspec-
tives in science curriculum policy is apparent in both
the 2015 PISA definition of SL and in the character of
the 2012 Framework document prepared for the United
States. This explanation derives further support from two
quarters. First, In the AAAS definition of SL, one of the
statements describing a scientifically literate person is
this: “uses scientific knowledge and scientific ways of
thinking for individual and social purposes” (p. 546 this
chapter). This is a hallmark of Vision I, and AAAS pub-
lications have influenced many state and local curricu-
lum policies in the United States and elsewhere. Second,
as noted earlier, there is a common assumption (cf. Jon
Miller’s work, especially Miller, 2000) that knowing sci-
ence is sufficient for dealing with matters of personal and
societal significance.
3. Vision II requires that teachers master new content,
a very different teaching style, and a familiarity and
comfort level with a different kind of discourse (prac-
tical reasoning) than the classroom discourses to
which they are accustomed.
Difficulties in learning to teach according to the dis-
course required for Vision II are of several types. Clark
and colleagues (2011) describe a South African project to
implement a Vision II course using a chemistry unit that
had been rewritten to focus on mining. They identify two
different kinds of problems encountered by the teachers.
First, the teachers themselves, and their students as well,
knew nothing about the real world of mining, despite its
economic and cultural importance in South Africa. Sec-
ond, the need to hold discussions was foreign to them as
science teachers—the common view that there really is
nothing to discuss in a typical science classroom. In a simi-
lar vein, Millar (2006) reported the following after the first
2 years (one cycle) of the Twenty First Century Science
project: “Key challenges identified are the language and
reasoning demands in looking critically at public accounts
of science, and the classroom management of more open
discussion about science-related issues” (p. 1499).
4. Vision II might not be recognized as a viable curricu-
lum model. Leaders in the statement of science educa-
tion policy or programs hold Vision I as the dominant
(and exclusive) model and thus either reject or do not
recognize Vision II as an option.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the dominant model for cur-
riculum reform was located in the conceptual and proce-
dural foundations of science disciplines, as interpreted by
writers such as Bruner (1960). In the history of that era,
the leaders of curriculum projects in the United States
 556 Douglas A. Roberts and Rodger W. Bybee
(e.g., PSSC, BSCS, CHEM STUDY, ESCP, SCIS) were
scientists who by nature of their education and experi-
ence embraced Vision I (Rudolph, 2002) as the basis for
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reforms. In this historical example, Vision I was, by the
perception of these leaders, the default model for curricu-
lum reform.
The Potential Effects of Overemphasizing
One Vision
Science curriculum history is littered with examples of
throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Major changes
in science curriculum have been due to changes in curricu-
lum orientation from Vision I to Vision II and vice versa.
(An example is the academic influence on science course
changes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which com-
pletely discredited Vision II.) Of course there have been
changes to subject matter as well, but the change of vision
is more remarkable. When a curriculum vision changes,
for whatever reason, the rhetoric usually cries out “Stop
doing any of that, and start doing all of this!” Neither
Vision I nor Vision II is immune from this possibility. The
introduction of some of the so-called alphabet courses—
notably PSSC Physics—is the most recent example of
shifting from Vision II to Vision I. The development of the
STS movement is probably the most telling example of a
shift from Vision I to Vision II.
Vision I programs run the risk of including situation-ori-
ented material (such as personal and social perspectives on a
science-related issue) in a token fashion, only as a source for
motivating students in lessons. By the same token (pardon
the pun), Vision II programs run the risk of paying insuf-
ficient attention to science. Aikenhead (1994) presents an
analysis of materials development, research, and teaching
approaches in STS according to eight categories that show
different blends of science content and attention to situa-
tions, or “STS content” (Aikenhead, 1994, pp. 55–56). At
one extreme is “Motivation by STS Content,” described as
“Traditional school science, plus a mention of STS content
in order to make a lesson more interesting. Not normally
taken seriously as STS instruction. .  .  . Students are not
assessed on the STS content.” At the other extreme is “STS
Contents,” described thus: “A major technology or social
issue is studied. Science content is mentioned but only to
indicate an existing link to science. .  .  . Students are not
assessed on pure science content to any appreciable degree.”
There is a message here, as well as an analytical scheme,
about what can happen in implementation efforts involving
both Vision II and Vision I.
Roth and Lee (2002, 2004) and Roth and Barton (2004)
have pushed Vision II to the extreme by redefining SL as
“collective praxis”—as if there is no such thing as “indi-
vidual” SL. All of their case studies, so far as we can
determine, are based on teaching science through the same
single context: personal and social perspectives. There is
a comment in a “Coda” (Roth & Lee 2004, p. 288) that
“Much research remains to be done to study the forms
distributed and situated cognition take in the approach
we propose.” Indeed. More research is also needed on
whether and how well students can shift from one con-
text to another as appropriate in different situations. For
example, suppose students learn about a community’s
river water chemistry in the context of personal and social
perspectives on science. Would that inhibit, contribute to,
or have no effect on their understanding of appropriate
features of scientific inquiry and/or the history and nature
of science—such as the system-theory character of eco-
logical inquiry? We submit that more research is needed
to answer questions of this sort. To be sure, we have sub-
stantial research on the impacts of teaching science within
a single context or curriculum emphasis (e.g., the research
on learning about the nature of science, about STS, etc.).
The point here is about multiple contexts and how those
affect learners, therefore feeding back implications for the
way SL is defined in curriculum policies and implemented
in instructional materials. There are risks to students’ edu-
cation in overemphasizing either Vision II or Vision I.
Concluding Remarks
Our review suggests to us there is more need than ever to
develop ways to balance science literacy (Vision I) and
scientific literacy (Vision II) in science education pro-
grams that can successfully meet the needs of all students.
Surely we as a profession have seen enough examples of
overemphasizing one vision at the expense of the other.
The Twenty First Century Science project in England has
shown how an overall, systemic solution can provide for
the two major functions of school science. It truly is a sys-
temic problem, too, in the sense that neither vision will
accommodate both functions. This project could provide
a template for other strategies, perhaps more suited to
other educational systems. In any event, the focus has to
be on the science education needs of the students, not the
ideological purity or attractiveness of a vision that fits the
needs of only a fraction of the students to be served.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the help of Justin Dillon and Gregory
Kelly, who gave us useful reviews of this chapter.
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