Sci & Educ (2013) 22:1089–1114

DOI 10.1007/s11191-012-9571-4

Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues: Implicit

Concept of Citizenship in the Curriculum, Views
of French Middle School Teachers

Catherine Barrue • Virginie Albe

Published online: 11 January 2013

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The educative goal of citizenship education through science education converges
to the declared purpose of the SSI research movement. Socioscientific issues formulated in
science education research covering topics as biotechnology, environmental issues, sus-
tainable development, energy choices, have been introduced in French Middle Schools. But
citizenship is often not clarified and can be multiple. After having clarified who is the citizen
targeted by SSI research movement, the concept of citizen in the French curriculum needs to
be clarify. What do these citizens have in common with the citizen that a sociology literature
review let see oscillating between obedience and critical thinking has also been investigated.
The paper also looks at the teachers’ views and their contribution to citizenship education
through socioscientific topics described in the national curriculum. From the analysis, dif-
ferent teachers’ views of citizenship education have been highlighted: a normative citizen-
ship education in connection with civility and rules and an emancipatory citizenship
education to develop pupils’ skills such as searching and evaluating information, argu-
mentation and critical thinking in order to enable pupils to build their own argued opinion
and to participate to public debates. This last emancipatory view of citizenship education is
congruent with the aim of social empowerment within the SSI research movement.

1 Introduction

Scientific literacy is a stated goal for most countries science education programmes. Within
a purpose of science democratization, the educative project is to equip citizens with skills
enabling them to participate in society building through involvement in decision-making.
This Citizenship Education (CE) is considered as part of the preparation for adult life. A
way to embody CE through science is to teach socioscientific issues (SSI). Socioscientific
issues as formulated by a research movement in science education (Albe 2008; Kolstø
2000; Sadler 2004, 2009) cover topics such as global warming, cloning and genetic
engineering, energy choices, etc. The argument that is generally promoted by this research

C. Barrue (&)
V. Albe

STEF, ENS Cachan, Universud Paris, Cachan, France
e-mail: kty.barrue@sfr.fr

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1090 C. Barrue, V. Albe

movement is the democratic participation. Although the aim of democratic participation is

relatively consensual, the reality seems more problematic and complex in school contexts
as underlined by Levinson (2010).
In French schools, SSI formulated as socioscientific controversies have been introduced in
class through media use (for example, TV news and press coverage about GMO), official
curriculum and specific teaching. In September 2005, the introduction of these issues was
reaffirmed by new instructions in the official curriculum defining the so-called ‘‘convergence
topics’’.1They are described in connection with social issues and the stated educative goal is CE.
They are: energy, environment and sustainable development, meteorology and climatology,
statistical approach of the scientific world, health and safety. These topics are common to six
subject matters forming the ‘‘wider scientific field’’: (1) mathematics, (2) physics and chem-
istry,2 (3) biology, (4) technology, (5) physical education, (6) history, geography and CE.3
Citizenship education is the educative goal promoted by the official curriculum through
‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching. This is also the declared purpose of the SSI research
movement. However, views of what citizenship should refer to are not clarified. Even if
from the outset ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching and SSI research share the same purpose,
what are the meanings of citizenship? What do citizens targeted by official curriculum and
SSI research have in common with those whom sociology and political science talk about?
Our literature review aims to clarify the notion of citizenship and consequently specify
what kind of CE, the SSI research movement promotes in order to contribute to democratic
participation. As ‘‘convergence topics’’ are connected in curriculum with CE and could be
recognized as SSI, our research interest focuses on the citizen targeted by the curriculum
and teachers’ views of this citizen. Our two research questions are:
• What is the citizen implicitly conveyed by official instructions of the curriculum?
• What are teachers’ views regarding this CE through ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching?

2 Literature Review: Citizenship, a Multiple, Moving and Dynamic Concept

The notion of citizenship has become such a common fixture in the public sphere that some
efforts are needed to understand its different meanings. Then, in order to handle the
different meanings of citizenship, a literature review of sociology and political science has
been supplied here in a first step. It produces emergent citizen profiles based on their
different features found in literature. Moreover, the SSI research movement advocated in
favour of schooling SSI within an aim at CE. Therefore, in a second step, SSI literature was
reviewed to identify who is the citizen targeted by this research field and what common
features he/she has with the emergent profiles established in the first step.

2.1 The Citizen Emerging from Sociology and Political Science Literature: a Citizen
Oscillating Between a Virtuous and a Critical Citizen

Our first source of sociology literature was Schnapper’s (2000) Qu’est ce que la
citoyennete´?4 in which she describes and analyses citizenship through history. The analysis
1
Bulletin Officiel, hors série no 5 du 25 août 2005.
2
In France, physics and chemistry form only one subject matter.
3
In France, History, Geography and CE form only one subject matter.
4
What is citizenship? (our translation).

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1091

of Schnapper’s work provided three common features of the citizen we termed: (1) a
citizen having rights, (2) having duties and (3) being informed and responsible. For each
thread, other authors were chosen because their research interests informed specifically
these three categories. Firstly, French socio-political literature was explored using the
keywords ‘‘citizenship and rights’’, ‘‘citizenship and duties’’ and ‘‘informed citizenship’’ in
research web-browsers, because the goal was to identify the main features of French
citizenship. However, once this national analysis was completed, the analysis of interna-
tional literature was also undertaken.
For the first category, the discussion was oriented around rights and referred to Ancient
and modern humanist views of citizenship. Then, the political scientists Ferry and Renault
(2007) and Marshall (1965) were retained because they proposed a deep analysis of this
citizenship modification. The second category was build around individual and collective
duties of the citizen, addressing the form of the civil society, which is the research pre-
occupation of the sociologist Pirotte (2007). The keywords ‘‘informed citizen’’ guided our
research to inform the third category. Consequently sociologists, philosophers and political
scientists interested in public deliberation (Callon et al. 2001; Habermas 1988) and in
participative democracy (Blondiaux and Sintomer 2002; Bonneuil 2004) were discussed.
From the literature we can then build three profiles: (1) ‘‘de facto citizen’’, (2) ‘‘virtuous
citizen’’ and (3) ‘‘critical citizen’’.
First, according to Schnapper (2000), citizens possess rights and this echoes with the
idea of equality of all citizens. But the understanding of equality is transparently different
between modern and Hellenic society. The political scientists Ferry and Renault (2007)
agree with this gap between Ancient conception and modern humanist view. They explain
that in the modern view, generally attributed to the Revolution era, citizenship has a
universal vocation and unequal and different citizens can mix. This explanation of this
universal citizen view developed by Ferry and Renault (2007) and Schnapper’s (2000) idea
can be put together. However, she develops that the infinite quest of equality has generated
different kinds of rights. They are usually presented following Marshall’s typology (1965):
freedom rights, political rights and economic and social rights. Even if the timeline of the
birth of the rights is not the same in all democratic countries, this typology is adequate for
French democracy. However, representative sociologists and philosophers of the com-
munitarian movement prominent in North America such as Kymlicka (1995), Taylor
(1994) and Bouchard and Taylor (2008) would add an emerging category: cultural and
identity rights as a part of ‘‘special rights’’. According to these sub-categories of rights, the
first emerging profile of citizen we identified through the literature is a citizen considered
as a ‘‘de facto citizen’’ by possession of rights. He/she is then free to use them to participate
or not participate in public and political life.
Secondly, Schnapper (2000) underlines that citizens have duties in the Hellenic citi-
zenship as well as in the modern view. In the Ancient understanding, citizens should have
to respect rules and behave for people’s well being. When she describes the citizen born
during the French Revolution, it is the idea that all members of a nation are equal that can
be kept in mind. The idea supposes common laws and an individual interest overruled by
the ‘‘general interest’’. Therefore, it can be seen as a form of self-sacrifice implied by
belonging to a nation and a form of obedience conducting the citizen in a virtuous way.
According to Pirotte (2007), whose research is about civil society, this collective aware-
ness was developed in a citizens commitment to collective actions through separate
organisation or collective associations. The associative web development and volunteering
can be related to behaviours including social rules towards community that can be sum-
marized under the terms ‘‘civility’’ and ‘‘solidarity’’. These emergent features provide a

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second citizen profile that we consider as a ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ displaying ‘‘good

behaviours’’.
Thirdly, Schnapper (2000) refers to the idea of the sovereign people, born during the
French revolution. People can have a role of counter balance because of its independence
from State and can discuss the decisions of representative politicians. Then groups rep-
resenting common interests emerge with the will to participate more directly in the
democratic process. Also, in his theory of communicative action, which is an exposition of
discourse in deliberative democracy, Habermas (1988) contended that associations, or-
ganisations and movements form citizenry, which receive, focus and reflect social prob-
lems on the public field. He underlined that deliberations could solve problems in public
organized space.
Sociologists and political scientists have examined this phenomenon and call it ‘‘par-
ticipative democracy’’. For instance, Blondiaux and Sintomer (2002), who are interested in
deliberation in democracy, insist on the fact that the decisive moment no longer lays in the
voting but on deliberative spaces in which lay people can debate with experts in a critical
way. This idea is also considered by Bonneuil (2004) who focuses on technoscientific
issues. Regarding these issues, he points out that these issues are now built in the public
field as political issues and society goals. These deliberative spaces providing debates
between citizens can be considered as ‘‘hybrid forums’’ as proposed by Callon et al.
(2001). This will to participate in debates and to contribute to political decisions can be
viewed as a central feature of what we recognized as a ‘‘critical citizen’’.
From this overview of this selected sociological literature, citizenship was highlighted
as a multiple concept because of its moving and dynamic features. More precisely, the
citizen oscillates between a ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ and a ‘‘critical citizen’’ having rights, which
constitute the common nucleus of these different profiles.

2.2 The Citizen Targeted by SSI Research: a Citizen With Scientific Knowledge
and Involved in Socio-Political Actions

The declared aim of SSI researchers is generally CE. However, the view on citizenship is
not defined. To highlight various trends of citizenship views, major journals of science
education5 and international conferences6 have been explored with the associated key-
words: ‘‘SSI and citizenship’’. In addition, French science education literature has been
explored to complete the corpus. The result was essentially the corpus retained by Albe
(2007) and Sadler (2004, 2009) in their literature reviews. Thus, the selected corpus relies
on these literature reviews providing a comprehensive framework about research objects
emerging from the literature. The corpus analysis has been structured according to these
objects (Albe 2007; Sadler 2004, 2009) in an aim at building three salient citizen profiles.
Moreover, this corpus has been extended to Colucci-Gray’s PhD (2007) and Gombert’s
Master’s Thesis (2008) because they described a non-usual approach of SSI in the research
community providing a fourth profile. We have also chosen some other papers when they
were published after 2009 (Hodson 2010; Sperling and Bencze 2010) to actualize the
corpus essentially based on the literature reviews of Albe (2007) and Sadler (2004, 2009).

5
International Journal of Science Education, Research in Science Education, Canadian Journal of Science,
Mathematics and Technology Education, Science Education, Studies in Science Education.
6
European Science Education Research Association and National Association for Research in Science
Teaching.

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1093

These research objects are presented in Table 1. The four citizen profiles targeted by
SSI teaching are named in the last column and presented following a hierarchy of pupils’
empowerment.
In his first review (Column 1, Table 1), Sadler (2004) gathered empirical research and
built four emergent categories focusing on socioscientific argumentation: the relationship
between Nature of Science (NOS) conceptualizations and SSI decision making, evaluation

Table 1 ‘‘Profiles of SSI-citizen’’

Research objects emerging from literature Citizen profile

Social and Communities A citizen engaged in socio-

political of practice political action
actions Sadler (2009)
Albe (2007) Participative
commitment
Hodson (2010)
Sperling and
Bencze
(2010)
Argumentation Argumentation Higher order A critical citizen being able
Sadler (2004) Albe (2007) thinking: to participate to public
Argumentation debate and decision
Reflective making
judgment
Creativity
Sadler (2009)
Argued and
reflective
decision
making
Albe (2007)
NOS and NOS and NOS and
decision evaluation of decision
making argumentation making
Sadler (2004) of experts Sadler (2009)
Albe (2007)
Evaluating
information
Sadler (2004)
Interest and A citizen having knowledge
motivation in science
Sadler (2009)
Conceptual Learning Content
understanding concepts scientific
on informal aiming knowledge
reasoning scientific Sadler (2009)
Sadler (2004) literacy
Albe (2007)

Resolve conflicts with A peaceful citizen

peaceful way and
non violent
behaviour
Gombert (2008)
Colucci-Gray (2007)

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1094 C. Barrue, V. Albe

of information pertaining to SSI, and influence of conceptual understanding on informal

reasoning. In 2007 (Column 2, Table 1), Albe (2007) extended literature to French and
English speaking authors and proposed a classification by five categories. These are SSI
teaching for: socio-political action that can be considered having the most emancipatory
goal; for understanding NOS and evaluating experts’ discourses; for reflective and argued
decision making; for argumentation; and, for learning scientific concepts in an aim of
scientific literacy.
In his second review (Column 3, Table 1), Sadler (2009) added a new category he calls
‘‘communities of practice’’ that can be understood as a participative commitment. He
argued in favour of communities of practice in classroom in reference to Hogan (2002) and
Roth and Lee (2004) with the aim of citizen commitment and considered that the project is
to develop practices and skills preparing pupils for an active participation regarding
societal issues involving science. This category built by Sadler (2009) can be compared
with the one Albe (2007) identified as social and political actions by committing pupils in
authentic problems involving different communities. The accent is put on participation,
collaboration and communication between the different actors. If this SSI approach is seen
in a historical perspective, it can be considered as following the STS research movement
(Aikenhead 2006).
Young people are considered and see themselves as full citizens and not as citizens-in-
the-making. Following Hodson (2003, 2010) who calls for action, other researchers
advocated in favour of ‘‘Activism’’. It is defined by Sperling and Bencze (2010) in ref-
erence to Holden and Clough (1998): a process to assist children to acquire skills for taking
action by providing opportunities to become involved as active citizens. These opportu-
nities could embody partnership with local associations. For the ‘‘activists’’, science
education may be considered in socio-political terms. They view science teaching as a
political act with teachers driving pupils to participate, to critique and to contribute to a fair
society. A first citizen profile targeted by SSI teaching can be drawn from these research
goals: He/she is a citizen involved or engaged in social and political action.
In 2009, Sadler created a general heading he called ‘‘higher order thinking’’, in which he
brought together research promoting development as argumentation and reflective judg-
ment (Zeidler et al. 2009) while Albe (2007) separated it into two categories: SSI for
argumentation and SSI for argued and reflective decision making. They both referred to
NOS to build a new category of research object found in literature. NOS is related to
decision-making about SSI in Sadler’s (2009) review and to evaluation of experts’ argu-
mentation in Albe (2007) review. The research focusing on what Sadler (2009) calls
‘‘higher order thinking’’ (argumentation, decision-making and understanding of NOS)
allowed us to build a second citizen profile targeted by SSI research movement: a critical
citizen having skills to be able to participate to public debate and decision making.
Albe (2007) identified researches about learning scientific concepts and Sadler (2009)
also underlined studies whose research goals are (1) learning scientific content knowledge,
and (2) students’ interest and motivation for science through SSI. The aim of learning
scientific knowledge by using SSI is retained to build a third profile targeted by SSI
research movement: a citizen having scientific knowledge.
The fourth and last citizen profile highlighted by literature analysis is called peaceful
citizen in reference to the research object of Colucci-Gray (2007) and Gombert (2008) with
a view to a non-violent approach to solving conflicts in a peaceful way. This citizen profile
has been separated with a double trait in Table 1 because this profile is not usual in SSI
research literature and the authors prioritize this approach of SSI debate in school. The
study of Gombert (2008) reported the student’s engagement on a global warming debate

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with the purpose of argumentation and knowledge through a non-violent approach (Albe
and Gombert 2012). This highlights that the categories are not exclusive: a ‘‘peaceful
citizen’’ in this approach is also considered as a ‘‘critical citizen’’.
These different profiles highlight the various objectives targeted by SSI research and
can be ranked according to criteria of pupils’ empowerment. Some researchers developed
designs in which pupils participate in socio-political action involving authentic experience
participation as developed in Albe (2007).7 We added here Sperling and Bencze (2010) in
this targeted citizen profile. Others advocated in favour of the second profile focusing on
skills enabling pupils to participate in public debate as well as engaging in wel-argued and
reflective decision-making as identified by Albe (2007).8 The third profile of citizen aims
to build a citizen with scientific knowledge by using SSI teaching. This scientific
knowledge is needed to handle issues and problems of contemporary life. This orientation
referred for instance to Barab et al. (2007), Klosterman and Sadler (2010) as selected by
Sadler (2009) in his review.

3 Methodology

Our first research question aims at clarifying what kind of CE is promoted through the
French middle school curriculum. As SSI have been introduced in this curriculum, it seems
to be a productive way to focus on the identification of the citizen targeted through new
instructions about the ‘‘convergence topics’’ in which SSI are recognized. An analysis of
the citizenship view emerging from the official curriculum has been performed to identify
citizen profiles. Eight texts used as official reference since 2005 have been analysed to
build these citizen profiles promoted by the curriculum:
• The one defining the ‘‘social and civic skills’’ as a part of ‘‘everything that is required to
master at the end of the compulsory schooling’’.9
• The one defining the ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching.10
• The six official texts defining the six subject matters of the ‘‘wider scientific field’’.11
Seven words or expressions related to social and civic skills were underlined in a first
analytic reading of the different texts because they were frequently used in these texts.
These seven words or expressions were: ‘‘respect’’, ‘‘awareness’’, ‘‘responsibility’’,
‘‘belonging to his/her country and European Union’’, ‘‘judgment and critical thinking’’,
‘‘choice and decision-making’’ and ‘‘commitment’’. In a second analytic reading, all the
expressions associated with these seven words have been quoted elaborating different
items. For example the word ‘‘respect’’ was associated with ‘‘behaviours’’, ‘‘self-respect’’
and ‘‘rules and laws’’. ‘‘Behaviours’’ was associated with ‘‘civility’’, ‘‘tolerance’’, etc. This
methodology provided reading grids of the selected official texts (Table 2, 3 and 4 in
‘‘Appendix 1’’). The specific or common items quoted in the different texts gave features
building different citizen profiles associated with their implied CE views.

7
Hogan (2002), Patronis, Potari and Spiliotopoulou (1999), Jiménez-Aleixandre and Pereiro-Muñoz
(2002), Jiménez-Aleixandre (2006).
8
Bader (2003), Driver et al. (1996), Grace (2009), Kolstø (2000, 2001) and Simonneaux (2003).
9
Competence 6 du socle commun des connaissances et des competences, Decret du 11 juillet 2006.
10
Bulletin Officiel, hors série no 5 du 25 août 2005.
11
Bulletin Officiel special no 6 du 28 août 2008.

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1096 C. Barrue, V. Albe

The second part of this research was dedicated to the middle school teachers’ teaching
of this new approach by ‘‘convergence topics’’. The purpose was to investigate how
teachers envisage CE through ‘‘convergence topics’’. To answer the second research
question to inform teachers’ views of CE, an exploratory study was made by an anonymous
handwritten questionnaire. The questionnaire (‘‘Appendix 2’’) was built around seven
items addressing teachers’ academic subject, activities and practices for teaching ‘‘con-
vergences topics’’. Some questions focused directly on teachers’ contribution to CE pro-
moted within the curriculum. It presents progressiveness in the kind of questions: the first
questions are short multiple-choice questions while the following questions require to write
a few lines. The last point is addressed by two questions relating to a short piece of the
official text defining the ‘‘convergence topics’’.
Originally, questionnaires were submitted to middle school teachers by an official web-
list to allow volunteers to answer. The teachers and the schools of the study were not
chosen.12 So, they were free to answer. As no answer was received, personal relationships
with teachers working in 15 middle schools were mobilised to submit the questionnaire.
Teachers we know delivered questionnaires to colleagues with an attached letter explaining
the research focus and their anonymous nature. By this method, 69 answers were received.
A content analysis has been conducted on the 69 answers collected. Proper statistical
data analysis cannot be performed because we received 69 answers (12 from teachers of
mathematics, 12 from teachers of history-geography, 8 from teachers of biology, 9 from
teachers of technology, 15 from teachers of physics and chemistry, 12 from teachers of
physical education). It is likely that the respondents contained a high proportion of teachers
interested by the teaching of ‘‘convergence themes’’ because they were free to answer or
not. The analysis is performed on declarative discourses. It is not possible to generalize
from the data, but an analysis allowed identifying trends in support of this study to be
exposed as can be seen in the results section. Multiple-choice questions were counted. In
contrast, those requiring a written answer were analysed so that categories and sub-cate-
gories were inferred.

4 Focus of Research: Citizenship Education in Official Curriculum and Teachers’

Views

4.1 A Tension Between two Citizenship Views in the Official Curriculum

of the French Middle School

4.1.1 An Aim at Building a ‘‘Virtuous Citizen’’

In the text defining the ‘‘social and civic skills’’ the following keywords have been quoted:
The word ‘‘Respect’’ and its different associated items describe a citizen having ‘‘self
respect’’ and ‘‘respect for others’’ as well as ‘‘rules’’ and ‘‘laws’’. He/she develops attitudes
and behaviours allowing him/her to be socially integrated through social codes and civility.
The word ‘‘Responsibility’’ is associated with acts about ‘‘health’’ and ‘‘safety’’. The word
‘‘Awareness’’ is quoted with items such as ‘‘rights’’, ‘‘duties’’ and ‘‘contribution to
community’’.
According to the phrase ‘‘belonging to the country and European Union’’ also in this
text, the citizen has to develop feelings towards France and the European Union, especially

12
In France there is only one kind of middle school and teachers.

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1097

by knowing their history and the French republican values. Common keywords have been
found in the text defining the ‘‘convergence topics’’: ‘‘respect’’ and ‘‘responsibility’’.
However the keyword ‘‘belonging to the country and the European Union’’ is not present.
Furthermore new associations have been described related to the keywords. ‘‘Respect’’ is
here associated with other items such as ‘‘lifestyle’’, ‘‘use of drugs’’ and ‘‘responsibility’’
refers to ‘‘responsible behaviour’’ about ‘‘health’’ in an explicit aim at educating people.
Only several contributions of subject matters are presented here for their specific or rel-
evant features according to the previous text analysis. The official texts framing history-
geography and physical education subjects teaching confer a great importance on school
rules and laws promoting a non-violent behaviour. They refer to national and European
History and republican values. According to the socio-political literature review, these
keywords describe a citizen profile termed a ‘‘virtuous citizen’’.

4.1.2 An Aim at Building a ‘‘Critical Citizen’’

But another feature can be highlighted with the examination of the other keywords. In the
texts defining ‘‘social and civic skills’’ and ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching, the keywords
‘‘commitment’’ and ‘‘judgment and critical thinking’’ have been quoted as common key-
words. ‘‘Commitment’’ is associated with expressions such as: ‘‘to be an actor in
democracy’’, ‘‘to participate in social life’’, ‘‘to be interested in public life and society
goals’’, and ‘‘initiative and autonomy’’. ‘‘Judgment and critical thinking’’ refer to
‘‘informed argumentation’’, ‘‘understanding a public debate’’ and ‘‘building informed
knowledge’’. A more critical and engaged citizen participating in ‘‘social and public life’’
and being ‘‘interested in society goals’’ is described. His/her participation depends on skills
identified in these official texts and gathered under the term ‘‘critical thinking’’: to evaluate
discourses, to be critical and educated about information and media use, to understand
public argumentation and to build and alter his/her view.
However, in the text defining the ‘‘convergence topics’’, the keyword ‘‘Awareness’’ is
specifically associated with the citizens role towards the environment while it was asso-
ciated with ‘‘rules and laws’’ as previously presented (Sect. 4.1.1). Moreover, the word
‘‘choice’’ is quoted as a new key word in this official text and linked with ‘‘energy’’ and
‘‘informed argumentation’’. In this official instruction framing ‘‘convergence topics’’
teaching, the participation of citizens in society choices is mentioned. ‘‘Informed argu-
mentation’’ and ‘‘building informed knowledge’’ are quoted in relation with ‘‘under-
standing public argumentation’’. Here, another dimension of citizenship view is
highlighted: the citizen has not only the responsibility to be interested in public life and
understanding public argumentation, but also to be involved in his/her own argumentation
building to be able to make choice.
The official texts defining scientific subjects teaching (physics and chemistry, biology
and technology) contain common keywords such as ‘‘awareness of society goals’’ and
‘‘choices’’ and attribute importance to individual impact and collective attitudes about
environment and living creatures. The necessary interest in new technologies and their
ethical and societal impacts are underlined. The Physics text is the only one that clarifies
that a citizen has to make social, political and ethical decisions. All subject matters refer to
knowledge as to ‘‘understand the world’’ and explicitly require a commitment in debate
participation. Also, ‘‘critical thinking’’ is connected with associations such as ‘‘to be
informed’’ and ‘‘to inquire’’ especially by scientific subjects underlining the central role of
evaluating evidence and the validity of an argument.

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1098 C. Barrue, V. Albe

4.1.3 Summary

To summarize the results of the curriculum analysis, it can be observed that there is not a
single citizenship view promoted through the official texts defining the ‘‘social and civic
skills’’, the ‘‘convergence topics’’ and the subject matters meant by the ‘‘wider scientific
field’’. The central features of the citizenship targeted can be good behaviours as well as
involvement in society choices or skills preparing them to deal with issues, which have
social, political and ethical dimensions. Then, a tension is observed between two different
citizen views in middle school curriculum: a virtuous citizen and a critical citizen building.

4.2 Contribution of Middle School Teachers to Citizenship Education Through

‘‘Convergence Topics’’ Teaching

4.2.1 A Logic of Subject Matter

Sixty teachers out of sixty-nine declared that they taught ‘‘convergences topics’’. The
distribution of the different teachers’ answers in response to the choice of quoted ‘‘con-
vergence topics’’ assumes logic of choice in subject matters. For example, technology and
physics teachers said that they teach energy and sustainable development. The biology
teachers say they teach sustainable development and health. Physical education teachers
deal mainly with health and security. According to these results, a clear connection can be
established between the teachers’ answers and the six topics of the curriculum (energy,
environment and sustainable development, meteorology and climatology, statistical
approach of the scientific world, health, and security). Teachers envisage the SSI topics as
directly related to their subject and not as common and multi-dimensional topics.

4.2.2 Special teaching and relation with professionals

Several teachers say they create special activities for this teaching. Some of them designed
this teaching with professionals, outside the school, and others in the classroom. For
example, some activities are organized in the fire station to work on safety, or pupils go to
exhibitions about water quality in the town hall. Some others designed this teaching outside
academic courses as multidisciplinary activities as described below:
‘‘During the IDD13 about water and sustainable development, we have created posters for an exhi-
bition and theatrical realisations. We have organized some debates.’’
‘‘We implement the ‘‘health week’’ in our school. There are some workshops about prevention, foods,
sexuality…’’
In keeping with their subject, some technology teachers seem to understand the terms
‘‘special activities’’ as the manufacturing of objects. However the majority of teachers’
answers highlights that these ‘‘special activities’’ are non-usual and non-customary
practices in their academic subject teaching. They develop in their answers that they feel
the need to build ‘‘special activities’’ for teaching ‘‘convergence topics’’ whilst giving
examples of what they understand under the term ‘‘special activities’’: debates, posters,
theatre and workshops.
The different answers show that teachers are willing to involve different practices in
their teaching, in relation to the activities they design with other teachers of the same

13
IDD are pluri-disciplinary project for grade 7and 8 (2 h per week).

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subject matter or with other people. For example, they prepare their lesson about health
with the school nurse and when they need documentation, they work with the librarian.
Still, when they are asked if they are together when using the activity in the classroom,
they answer negatively. Either they are alone, or they delegate to a professional participant
working outside the school, whom they consider as more qualified to provide knowledge
on selected topics.

4.3 Contribution to Consistency Between Subject Matters Through ‘‘Convergence

Topics

Regarding our data analysis, three categories of teachers’ views have been elaborated. In
the first category, teachers say they don’t contribute to consistency between different
subject matters. They underline the lack of teamwork and institutional time, which hin-
dered a potential will to engage in this teaching as expressed below in these examples:
‘‘There is no consistency because there is no teamwork except perhaps between physical education
teachers in our middle school’’
‘‘There is no consistency and teamwork because there is no money for this additional work and
pupils’ school time decreases…’’
‘‘If consistency is synonymous with multi-disciplinarity, then it missed! Yet, if a common theme is
taught by different academic subjects’ teachers, it can make sense for pupils…’’
In the second category, teachers state that they contribute to consistency and focus on
collaborative work. The quotes below present some examples:
‘‘By working with teachers of other academic subjects’’
‘‘I participate to a work group with volunteers teachers of other middle schools of my work area.’’
‘‘I often ask my colleagues when they are working on the same subject as me in their academic
subject.’’
The teachers of the third category like those quoted below refer to the official curriculum
as contributing by itself to the ‘‘convergence themes’’ teaching.
‘‘This teaching is entirely in the biology curriculum!’’
‘‘I teach ‘‘convergence themes’’ when I teach my usual physics course’’
‘‘The curriculum describes a citizenship education in the different grades of middle school’’.
In addition, when they refer to the official curriculum, a minority declared openly that
‘‘convergence themes’’ shouldn’t be their preoccupation. They expressed bad feelings
towards those supposed authors of official texts defining curriculum, talking about
‘‘inspectors’’, ‘‘experts’’ or ‘‘people who do not know the reality of the school’’. The two
answers below provide examples of this:
‘‘I do not contribute: no time, the inspectors stress us to finish the program and to respect the
curriculum. There is some time for each chapter and no free time to teach other issues. We are tired
of receiving injunctions! We have the feeling that ‘‘experts’’ have added ‘‘convergence topics’’ for
grandstanding! They are people who do not know the reality of a school!’’
‘‘Curriculum is thought up by people who do not know what is a class with 30 pupils! We have no
time for teamwork, because we are not paid for this additional time! We need time to work in multi-
disciplinarity, but it is utopia!’’

4.4 Contribution to Citizenship Education Through Convergence Topics Teaching

Three categories of teachers’ answers have been built: teachers who contribute to a CE by
developing pupils’ behaviours, those who answer by new practices and those who con-
tribute to build pupils’ skills.

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1100 C. Barrue, V. Albe

The first category gathered the majority of the teachers’ answers. These teachers pro-
mote pupils’ behaviours such as civility, respect of rules, awareness of society’s chal-
lenges. They talk about these behaviours in the following statements:
‘‘The rules of community life during travels for example…’’
‘‘I try to make pupils aware about the protection of the planet and the importance of pre-emptive
action in health and safety.’’
In the second category, teachers underline the necessity to change school practices to
contribute to a CE. They develop the idea that they have to teach ‘‘actual authentic
problems’’ and one of them declares that pupils have to participate to ‘‘authentic
actions’’. Their common thinking is to build a bridge between school knowledge and
what they call ‘‘the real life’’. They consider that it is necessary to link teaching to
pupils’ everyday life to give meaning to knowledge. For them it is necessary to
develop debate practice about ‘‘convergence topics’’ identified such as linked with un-
established knowledge provided on a need-to-know basis. These following examples
express this rationale:
‘‘Pupils have to participate to authentic actions’’
‘‘We have to talk about actual authentic problems to give sense to our teaching.’’
‘‘Each part of the curriculum is often tackled by a problem concerning every citizen life.’’
‘‘As I can… as often as possible, trying to arouse thought and discussion rather than providing
established and indisputable ‘‘knowledge’’. It’s not always easy for adolescent students who are
reluctant to express opinions in public!’’
The third category highlights the view of a minority of teachers’ answers. They think they
contribute to CE. For this, they try to develop pupils’ skills such as searching and
evaluating information, argumentation and ‘‘critical mind’’ in their own words. These
teachers perceived their role in terms of developing pupils’ argued opinion as quoted in
these examples:
‘‘I do think ‘‘convergence topics’’ are controversial topics for debates arousing pupils’ curiosity in an
aim to search information and to build their own opinion’’
‘‘It’s important to evaluate the information sources!’’
‘‘With information and thought, they can improve their critical mind and develop skills of analysis.’’

4.5 Summary

The data was explored as a mean to uncover various trends. Teachers are aware
that ‘‘convergences topics’’ teaching needs commitment in new practices to contribute to
CE. Their discourses show that some of them are willing to engage in unusual practices to
develop social and civic skills, but point difficulties in school organization. They feel
uncomfortable with the lack of teamwork to design activities involving the multi-dimen-
sions and the complexity of ‘‘convergence topics’’ aiming at promoting CE. Many teachers
refer to official texts defining their subject matter teaching such as they contribute them-
selves to consistency to teach ‘‘convergence topics’’. They describe activities and practices
according to school or media events as motivating contexts to learn academic knowledge.
Other teachers, centred on pupils’ skills, try to implement activities such as debates and
work with professionals to make link between school and society. They support the idea of
developing argumentation about un-established knowledge linked with society and
encourage pupils to build their own argued opinion.

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1101

5 Discussion

Different views on citizenship have been established through the previous reviews of
sociology and SSI movement literature. Citizenship can be apprehended as a multiple,
moving and dynamic issue. From a sociologist’s perspective, a citizen can be considered as
a virtuous citizen as well as a critical citizen. Even if some various trends have been
identified in the SSI literature, the emphasis is put on a critical citizen with the aim of
contributing to democratic participation. What are the curriculum and teachers’ views?

5.1 CE Views in Curriculum and the Citizen Emerging from Socio-Political Literature

Our first research aim was to determine what kind of citizen is targeted by the French
middle school curriculum and what kind of CE is promoted through the new approach of
‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching. Analysis of the official texts defining the ‘‘social and civic
skills’’, the ‘‘convergence topics’’ and the subject matters incorporated within the ‘‘wider
scientific field’’ highlight a tension between two citizen views. On one side, the educative
goal is to build a citizen with behaviours encouraging social integration with the aim of
being able to live with others. On the other side, the educative goal is to build a citizen who
should be able to debate and express choice about society goals. For this, he/she will have
to acquire skills to be prepared to deal with issues having social, political and ethical
aspects in order to be involved in society choice.
These two different views of curriculum compared with citizen views emerging from
socio-political literature review can be recognized as the ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ and the
‘‘critical citizen’’ identified as salient profiles in society. The same tension is observed
between these two different views in middle school curriculum as well as in society.
According to these views, the CE targeted by middle school curriculum oscillates between
what we consider as a normative education aiming at building a ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ and as
an emancipatory education aiming at building a ‘‘critical citizen’’ (Fig. 1).

5.2 Teachers’ views of CE and the Citizen Emerging from Sociology and Political
Science Literature

Our second research question aimed at explicating how teachers consider CE regarding this
approach by ‘‘convergence topics’’. A significant result can be obtained from data analysis:
a majority of teachers’ answers described them promoting CE as a form of docility in

Fig. 1 The tension between two citizenship education views in the French middle school curriculum

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1102 C. Barrue, V. Albe

regard of good behaviours and focus on their subject matter content without incorporating
‘‘convergence topics’’ in their teaching. A minority of teachers’ answers reveal another CE
view: they have the will to develop skills to enable pupils to be associated in debates and
political decisions about society goals in their adult life. To achieve this goal, they design
activities to encourage pupils to express their argued points of view and show a willingness
to forge links between school context and society.
Therefore, teachers seem torn between two opposed citizen views (Fig. 2), because their
answers were in some cases in favour of the first view and in other cases in favour of the
second view. If they are compared to socio-political profiles, the same tension can be
observed. Either, teachers’ views are based on citizen features that are common with the
socio-political profile termed ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ or they promote a citizen building view
recognized as a ‘‘critical citizen’’ in our socio-political literature review. However, the
majority of teachers’ views is in favour of a normative view while the minority of them
support an emancipatory view.

5.3 Teachers’ Views of CE and Curriculum Views

Moreover the tension within the teachers’ views of the citizen can be seen as
expressing the same inherent tension as that within the curriculum itself: promoting on
one side a normative CE associated with building a ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ and on the other
side an emancipatory CE aimed at building a ‘‘critical citizen. However the distribution
of results may be questioned. Why does the predominant normative view emerge in
teachers’ answers while curriculum analysis shows a balanced tension between two
opposed views?
Do the sustained efforts of teachers to develop new practices in ‘‘convergence topics’’
teaching depend on the strength of teachers’ beliefs in an emancipatory view of CE or their
interpretations of official prescriptions? Moreover, some teachers’ difficulties emerge from
the ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching and could explain why they are a minority to promote
‘‘critical citizen’’ building through this new approach. Teachers’ responses form the idea
that it is necessary to develop unusual practices to deal with this teaching. However, they
point to several difficulties such as school organization and the lack of teamwork. These
teachers seem to think that ‘‘convergence topics’’ have to be considered in a global per-
spective to contribute to a critical CE.

Fig. 2 The tension between two citizenship education views of middle school teachers

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1103

According to the results, unusual practices are envisaged as interdisciplinary and

collective teaching activities to produce different representations of knowledge building
as opposed to academic ones. Nonetheless, the lack of teamwork and time, linked to
school organization, may be interpreted as a brake to develop these kinds of practices
in order to promote an emancipatory view. Another difficulty faced by teachers
emerging from the results is the complexity of the ‘‘convergence topics’’ because they
refer to ‘‘un-established’’ science. This difficulty to deal with ‘‘un-established’’ science
could also explain why a lot of teachers participating in the study focus on traditional
content knowledge even if they declare that they teach ‘‘convergence topics’’. It should
raise the question: do they have difficulties with ‘‘convergence topics’’ or more spe-
cifically with the un-established science they have to deal with just as they do as an
ordinary citizen?

5.4 Curriculum, Teachers’ Views and SSI Citizen

When the curriculum view leans towards building the ‘‘critical citizen’’ in an emancipatory
view, the analysis points out that the citizen has to be interested in new technologies, to
make social, political and ethical decisions and to be involved in debate participation.
When this view is compared with the SSI citizen profiles established in the literature
review it is clear that common features are shared with the second profile targeted within
the SSI research movement. They describe the critical citizen as being able to participate in
public debate and decision-making.
The teachers who defended ‘‘critical citizen’’ building display the will to develop
pupils’ skills in searching and evaluating information, argumentation and critical mind
(their own words). They try to encourage pupils to form their own opinion through
activities such as debates. When this perspective is compared with the SSI profiles
described in the literature review, these features are recognizable as research objects
that Sadler (2009) gathered under the term ‘‘higher order thinking’’ consistent with
the second profile: a critical citizen being able to participate to public debate and
decision making. Moreover, only one teacher (history and geography teacher NO 5)
takes a position in favour of pupils’ commitment to authentic actions showing he/she
has the same educative goal as researchers promoting pupils’ involvement in socio-
political actions. Therefore, a marginal link based on this marginal teachers’ answer
can be established with the first profile describing a citizen engaged in socio-political
action.

5.5 CE Views and Democratic Participation

The tension highlighted between the CE views expressed in the curriculum and amongst
teachers’ themselves may be placed amongst Levinson’s four frameworks (2010) on
democratic participation in technoscientific issues in society and in school. Within the
‘‘deficit framework’’, the main idea is to educate people to understand science. Thus, these
learners are considered as cognitive containers. In a school context, the teacher is recog-
nized as an intermediate between scientists and students and has to fill these containers
with scientific knowledge, without referring to the ethical and political aspects. This view
of teachers’ role developed in the ‘‘deficit framework’’ can be recognized in a perspective
emerging from the analysis of teachers’ answers on their use of ‘‘convergences topics’’. For
them, it is a way to learn academic knowledge controlling the content to teach.

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1104 C. Barrue, V. Albe

Moreover, our results also reveal that some teachers implement activities such as debate
with the aim of developing what they called ‘‘critical thinking’’ and refer to un-established
science. This will to create opportunities for deliberation and this consideration of the
epistemological dimension of science can be recognized as elements of the ‘‘deliberative
framework’’ proposed by Levinson (2010). Another perspective has been discerned as a
result: activities about ‘‘convergence topics’’ have to bear on pupils’ everyday life and
require interdisciplinary work. A similar idea seems to be developed in the ‘‘science
education as praxis’’ within Levinson’s framework: science is recognized as a tool among
others. Thus knowledge is not pre-prepared in the curriculum but is situated. We supposed
that teachers within this study envisage everyday life situations with shared knowledge
through teamwork. This view can be linked to the ‘‘science education as praxis’’ frame-
work developed by Levinson (2010).
This confrontation of the teachers’ views and the frameworks constructed by Lev-
inson (2010) leads us to question the potential links between the CE views promoted
by the curriculum and these frameworks. According to the ‘‘deficit framework’’, Lev-
inson (2010) underlined that the citizen has the responsibility to be informed, aware of
technical development and has to trust experts without self-expertise. This citizen view
emphasizes common characteristics with what we call the ‘‘virtuous citizen’’ targeted
by the normative view of CE from the curriculum analysis and provide connection with
the ‘‘deficit’’ framework. Furthermore the emancipatory view of CE identified in cur-
riculum analysis is based on a ‘‘critical citizen’’ building. This citizen has to be
involved in society choices and acquire skills preparing them to deal with the social,
ethical and political aspects. This last perspective reflects an aim towards democratic
participation but does not specify the form and the level of involvement. Does it imply
a deliberative participation considered as ineffectual towards decision-making as
observed in the ‘‘deliberative’’ framework? Or, does it imply an active participation to
enhance change as developed in the ‘‘science education praxis’’ framework? These
potential connections allow us to suggest that the normative CE view could limit
democratic participation to simply citizen acceptance while emancipatory CE enhances
an active form of citizenship.

6 Conclusion and Implications

This case study aimed at contributing to a deeper understanding of the citizen targeted by
the curriculum aimed at science education and teachers’ views of this citizen. In other
words, of great interest to us was the identification of the citizen that would be targeted
through the new French middle school curriculum and the ways teachers consider their
teaching as contributing to a CE. Our work focused on a new approach developed for
young pupils in French Middle School named ‘‘convergence topics’’ teaching that may
contribute to an understanding of how to build a critical citizen through SSI. Critical
citizen building considered by a line of SSI research movement as seen in literature review
and also aimed by several teachers as highlighted in this study still need to be examined by
researchers.
As ‘‘convergence topics’’ are positioned with connections with CE, we perceive the
curriculum policy, teaching and research implications deriving from our results.

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1105

• Curriculum implication: the tension identified from analysis of curriculum between a

normative education leading to the manufacturing of a docile citizen and an
emancipatory education aimed at forming a critical citizen leads us to underline that
it would be desirable to clarify what kind of citizen we14 want to build for democratic
participation and what kind of science education it could be necessary to promote. An
active democratic participation could meet a strong orientation of curriculum policy
towards emancipatory CE. If curriculum policy is not clearly in favour of critical
citizen building, the intentions of the minority of teachers identified in this study who
are in favour of this perspective could be rendered worthless.
• Teaching implication: To deal with the ‘‘nebulous view’’ of CE as revealed by our data
compels teachers to support their own view of their role as a teacher as well as a
citizen. They have to take a position in favour of emancipatory CE if they consider
science education as a socio-political commitment joining some SSI researchers’
perspective and not as a pre-packaged science that pupils have to swallow. For this,
they should be given opportunities to clarify their own position on CE. Another aspect
is to develop a confidence in a non-traditional approach. There is a need to engage
teachers in training that could enable them to handle specific practices centred on SSI
integrated social, political and ethical approaches and empower them to act.
• Research implication: The results of this study about CE views in curriculum and
teachers’ views demonstrate that it is possible and effective to promote an
emancipatory view of CE through ‘‘convergence topics’’ but also underlines some
teachers’ difficulties. Science education research explores student learning relative to
SSI about interest and motivation, argumentation, and higher order thinking (Sadler
2009). However more research efforts have to be made to understand the origin of
teachers’ difficulties regarding SSI. Teachers’ practices and relation with ‘‘un-
established’’ science need to be explored deeply to understand what science can be
taught and what teachers’ practices are appropriate to develop a ‘‘science education as
praxis’’ framework (Levinson 2010). If ‘‘convergence topics’’ aim at being a vehicle for
critical citizen building, it seems crucial to identify why there is tension regarding an
emancipatory view of CE.

Appendix 1

See Tables 2, 3 and 4.

14
As society.

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1106 C. Barrue, V. Albe

Table 2 Keywords and associated items of the official text defining the social and civic skills
Respect Self-respect
In his/her behaviour towards others Civility
Tolerance
Refusal of violence
Solve conflicts in a pacific
manner
Teamwork
To communicate with others
Respect for diversity of
choices and opinions
To make hear his/her point of
view
Respect of private life
Respect of the other gender
For rules and laws
Awareness Of the others, solidarity
Of necessary contribution of community
Of rights and duties Democratic rules (voting)
Civil and criminal rights
Legal rights
Responsibility Towards the others To be educated in sexuality,
health and safety
To know emergency actions
and rescue.
To evaluate consequences of his/her
actions
Belonging to his/her country To know founding texts
and European Union To know national and European Union
histories
To know the aims of the project joining
nations of European Union
To know republican symbols
To know republican values
To know institutions
Commitment To be an actor of the democracy
To participate to social life
To be interested to public life
To be interested to the goals of society
Initiative
Autonomy
Judgment and critical thinking To evaluate discourses
To understand a public argumentation
To be critical about information
To be educated about the media field
To build his/her own opinion
To remove his/her opinion
Make democratic decisions

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Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1107

Table 3 Keywords and associated items of official text defining the ‘‘convergences themes’’
Respect Self-respect About drugs, food…
For rules Towards the others about
safety rules
About lifestyle
Of security rules in
school activities
Awareness Of the others, global solidarity
Of the impact of weather and climate on road safety
Of the risks about safety
Of their role about environment
About health (donations of blood and organs)
Responsibility To make responsible choices
By understanding individual and collective responsibility
toward environment
By having a responsible behaviour towards safety
By having a responsible behaviour about health
Choice Informed argumentation to make choices
To participate to a legitimate thinking when choices are Energy choice
made
To choose appropriate behaviour for him/herself and others
(individual responsibility)
Commitment To participate to a legitimated thinking to formulate Energy choice
choices
In the harmonious management of his/her environment
To take care of his/her and others’ protection with the
respect of rules.
Judgment et critical Informed argumentation
thinking To understand a public argumentation
To build informed knowledge

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 Table 4 Keywords and associated items of official text defining the academic subjects of the ‘‘wider scientific field’’
1108

Physics Biology Technology Mathematics History Physical

Chemistry Geography Education

123
Citezenship
Education

Respect Self respect For his/her body (health) X X X X

For the others To listen the others X X X X X
Tolerance and fight against prejudice X
To communicate and interact X X X X X
To respect the opinions of others X X X X
To voice their views X X X
To respect intellectual property X
To explain to the others and teamwork X X X X
To respect of the opposite sex X X
Non-violent behaviour and solve conflicts in a peaceful X X
and consensual way
To respect of private and public life X
For rules Instructions X X
School rules X X
Laws X
Safety rules X X X X X
For equipment X X
For the planet and X
environment
C. Barrue, V. Albe
 Table 4 continued
Physics Biology Technology Mathematics History Physical
Chemistry Geography Education
Citezenship
Education

Awareness Of others, global X X

solidarity
Of the rights Rights of information technologies X
Voting X
Children rights X
Of the society goals Ethical implications in the progress of science X X
and technology
Impact of new technologies on society X
Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues

Impact of behaviours about live being X X

Individual impact of environment X X X
Commitment To participate to debate X X X X X X
In social and associative X X
roles
To take initiatives X X X X X
To be interested in new X X X
technologies X X X
Autonomy
Choice and decision Reasoned and informed X X X
making To make decisions In social field X X
In politics X X
In ethics X
1109

123
 Table 4 continued
1110

Physics Biology Technology Mathematics History Physical

Chemistry Geography Education

123
Citezenship
Education

Responsibility Towards others To be educated about sexuality X

To evaluate the consequences X
of his/her acts
Towards environment (eco-citizen) X X X X X
Toward consumption (eco-consumer) X X
Towards health X X X X
Towards safety X X X X
Judgment and To acquire knowledge to understand the X X X X X X
critical thinking world
To be informed X X X
To argue X X X X X
To evaluate the evidence and the X X X X
validity of an argument.
To reason X X X X X
To evaluate information X
To be educated to media X X
To question X
To make own opinion X
Belonging to his/ To know national and European History X X
her country To know the founding texts X
To know republican symbols X
To know republican values X X
C. Barrue, V. Albe
Citizenship Education and Socioscientific Issues 1111

Appendix 2

Questionnaire submitted to teachers about “convergence topics” teaching.

What subject matter do you teach? (* Put a cross in the appropriate box (es))
Mathematics History and Geography
Biology Citizenship Education
Physics and Chemistry Physical Education
Technology

From how long do you teach? ….

In which grade do you teach this year? ….

……………………………………………………………………………………………….......

1- Do you teach “convergence topics”? Yes- No (**circle your choice)

-If “yes”: all- some of them (**)

-If “some of them”, specify below (*):

Energy Statistical approach of the scientific world

Environment and sustainable development Health
Meteorology et climatology Safety

2- In which grade do you teach these topics?

All- Grade 6- Grade 7– Grade 8- Grade 9 (**)

From how long do you teach these topics?

3-Do you design special activities for this teaching? (**)

If “Yes”, specify below:

4-For this teaching, do you prepare your lessons with other persons? Yes- No (**)

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1112 C. Barrue, V. Albe

If “yes”, specify which subject matter does (do) this (these) person(s) teach or what job does (do) this (these)
person (s) have in your school?

5-For this teaching, do you teach together during these lessons? Yes- No (**)

6-How do you organise these lessons from grade 6 to grade 9?

7-It is written the following sentences in the official text defining “convergence topics” teaching:

“For each subject matter, it is to contribute in a coordinated manner to appropriation by pupils of knowledge
about these topics, elements of a shared culture. This should in particular give greater consistency to education
received by pupils about health, safety and the environment that are essential to future citizen.”(our translation)

-How do you contribute to the consistency required by this text?

-How do you contribute to citizenship education through “convergence topics” teaching?

Free expression:

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