Previous studies have pointed to the benefits of involving students' everyday life experiences in lessons and in contextualizing the science content to enhance learning and positive attitudes toward school science. However, most of these investigations have been conducted as intervention studies. By contrast, the present study explored how…

In the current debate, there is no consensus on the relationship between knowledge and values in students' reasoning and argumentation in socio-scientific and sustainability issues, i.e. if these should be addressed as separate entities or rather treated as a whole. In this study, we address this question empirically, with students engaging in two…

Learning democratic participation as future citizens is an important goal for science education for all students. To take part in debates and decision-making involving socioscientific issues, such as sustainability, students need to become aware of different positions and dilemmas regarding such issues. This study seeks to understand how…

How can young people make use of digital tools and methods to get to grips with the risks and dilemmas arising out of contemporary science, technology and society relations? This chapter addresses the forms of agency enabled through a set of techniques for exploring and visualizing controversial technoscientific issues on the web. Given the…

This paper reports on a study of how students' reasoning about socioscientific issues is framed by three dynamics: societal structures, agency and how trust and security issues are handled. Examples from gene technology were used as the forum for interviews with 13 Swedish high-school students (year 11, age 17-18). A grid based on modalities from…

In this study, the purpose is to develop and illustrate a method that facilitates investigations of students' learning processes in classroom discussions about socioscientific issues. The method, called transactional argumentation analysis, combines a transactional perspective on meaning making based on John Dewey's pragmatic philosophy and an…