This article focuses on the learning of the Lewis representation at the transition from high school to university, in France. Indeed, this notion is taught both in high school and in the first year of higher education but with different methods, which seems to hinder the learners. In this work, we observe 11th grade and higher education classes…

History of education reveals that the perimeter of a school subject as well as the manner of teaching it may vary according to the time period, the country, its political situation and its economic needs. Furthermore, if it clearly depends on the level of the learners and on the school itself, sometimes the teacher's preoccupations can adapt it.…

Classroom actions rely, among other things, on teaching habits and traditions. Previous research has clarified three different teaching traditions in science education: the academic tradition builds on the idea that simply the products and methods of science are worth teaching; the applied tradition focuses on students' ability to use scientific…

It is often said that the number of current world leaders who chose to be educated in another country can serve as a useful, though rough and incomplete, indicator of "soft power." So, since 2015, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has been publishing desk research on the tertiary education of serving heads of state and heads…

Purpose: In France at the high school the subject matter "Sciences Économiques et Sociales" (economic and social sciences) deals with the present economic crisis. We study the ways it is taught about: words, and explanatory patterns. Design/methodology/approach: We use a specific approach, that we call "semantic holism",…

Contributions from and innovation in science and technology over many decades have resulted in dramatic improvements to American lives, including enhanced living standards and life expectancy, better access to information and connectivity across the globe, and increased access to and affordability of consumer goods. The analysis in this report is…

In an academic semester, living in social isolation and under restrictions of the pandemic, we organized weekly multidisciplinary seminars from a postgraduate course program in Curitiba, Southern Brazil, integrating students from different regions of Brazil and South America. Outstanding researchers from Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina, Mexico,…

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of highly cited articles published in the Web of Science category "Education and Educational Research" in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). A total of 2091 journal articles published in this category and cited more than 100 times up to the end of the year 2016 were retrieved as highly…

This paper proposes a study of the various ways in which social and ethical issues are integrated in the curricula of nanoscience and nanotechnology master degrees. During the last decade, new types of courses have appeared in science and technology universities, first in the United States and now reaching Europe and France, associating a call for…

A number of reports recently identify that the quality of science education in a number of European countries is lower than expected. One of the reasons for the apparent underachievement in this generally economically prosperous continent might be a pedagogy of science that lacks variety, or a pedagogy that is less engaging than other subjects.…

Purpose: After a short historical presentation, this country report highlights current developments of social science education in France and clarifies its general status in the French school system, giving not only information about the curricula baselines, but also on current reforms, shifts and conflict lines among practitioners and…

Over 1.7 billion students around the world have had their education disrupted by the spread of the Coronavirus disease worldwide. Schools and universities have not faced this level of disruption since World War II. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a colossal challenge for teachers to urgently and massively adapt all their classes to distance…

This study explores the way the concept of temperature was presented in lower-secondary science textbooks in France, Poland and England at the end of the 1950s and in the 2000s. I draw on history of science, history of education and book history to analyze different treatments of an apparently-similar scientific concept with regard to national…

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 is the sixth administration of this international comparative study since 1995 when first administered. TIMSS is used to compare over time the mathematics and science knowledge and skills of fourth- and eighth-graders. TIMSS is designed to align broadly with mathematics and…

The number of science and discovery centres has grown exponentially over the last two centuries. Science and discovery centres are one of the top five stimuli that influence a career choice in science. Their history, growth, impact and role in the public understanding of science are discussed. (Contains 2 tables, 7 figures, and 21 online…