Scientific Literacy in the Wild

Abstract

In this chapter, we follow up with the discussion of Chap. 4 on the aims of science education as denoted by the concept of scientific literacy. Frequently, scientific literacy is taken as a particular epicized image of science consisting of a set of “basic” scientific concepts. In contrast, we ask the question how scientific literacy can be taken such that it is appropriate for describing and theorizing its occurrence “in the wild,” that is, in the everyday world that we share with others. Consistent with our commitment to practice, we exemplify relevant theories of everyday cognition with a case study of scientific literacy in the wild. Accordingly, we conceive scientific literacy as situated, distributed, and dynamic. We use this case study as a touchstone for reviewing the literature on scientific literacy as it has been developed over the past 50 years. Our review shows that models of knowing to which novelization is inherent account for scientific literacy in the wild better than epicized theories of knowing. If the purpose of science education is to produce a scientifically literate citizenry, the question now can be asked what these models propose to frame school science and the possible trajectories that might lead to scientific literacy in the wild.KeywordsScience EducationScientific LiteracyCurriculum ReformFeature CaseEveryday WorldThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.