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Visions and Voices: Scientific Literacy and Room for Autonomy in the Scottish and Swedish Science Curriculum.
University of Borås, Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and IT.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5315-452x
University of the West of Scotland.
2018 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Curriculum making operates at the institutional, programmatic and classroom level (Doyle, 1992a 1992b). The institutional level, represented by curriculum policy at the interface between schooling, culture and society is typified by what is valued by society and desirable in socio-cultural terms. Day and Bryce (2013) argue that the curriculum policy vision (rationale) statements represent Institutional level curriculum making. The programmatic level is contained within documents and materials for use by schools to orient classroom activities. Day and Bryce (2013) further suggest that these documents represent the policy image. Curriculum making at this level transforms the institutional curriculum into school subjects which are framed by a set of arguments that rationalise the selection and arrangement of content and the translation of content for school and classroom use (Doyle, 1992b). This paper critically examines the extent to which Scottish and Swedish Science curriculum documentation supports meaningful curriculum making.

Two competing visions of scientific literacy (SL) can be identified within most science curricular documents. Vision I SL, looks inward and relates to the discipline of science itself, e.g. its products and processes. Vision II SL looks outward at situations in which science has a role and relates to the situations in which science demonstrably plays a role in human affairs. These two visions of SL are used as a framework for analysing the Scottish and Swedish science curricula.

A textual discourse analysis of Scottish and Swedish Science curricular policy documents relating to the primary and lower secondary school phase of education was performed. First, all relevant science curriculum documents relating to the Scottish and Swedish curriculum were identified and shared. Second, the authors read and analysed the orientation of the science curricula. Third, the authors read and identified the common and contrasting features of each country’s science curriculum and established the extent to which vision each curriculum attended.

Analysis indicates structural similarities between the two countries science curricula in terms of breadth and range of content areas covered. They differ in terms of content detail; specificity of language and explicit orientation. They also differ substantially in the emergent voices and room for teacher autonomy. The Swedish science curriculum is more specific in its use of language with the Scottish being more vague. Both countries curricula have a clear orientation statement but the Scottish curriculum is orientated towards developing students as scientifically literate citizens with skills, competencies and knowledge whereas the Swedish curriculum is oriented towards students’ accumulation of scientific knowledge. The Scottish curriculum emphasizes scientific literacy more strongly than the Swedish, whereas both orientate mainly towards a Vision I SL.

References.

Day, S. P., and Bryce, T.G.K, (2013) Curriculum for Excellence Science: Vision or Confusion? Scottish Educational Review, 45 (1), 53-66.

Doyle, W. (1992a). Curriculum and pedagogy. In P.W. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of research on curriculum. New York: Macmillan.

Doyle, W. (1992b). Constructing curriculum in the classroom. In F.K. Oser, A. Dick, & J. Patry (Eds), Effective and responsible teaching: The new syntheses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publisher.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018.
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-15735OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-15735DiVA, id: diva2:1287354
Conference
SERA 2018, Glasgow, November 21-23, 2018
Available from: 2019-02-11 Created: 2019-02-11 Last updated: 2021-09-01Bibliographically approved

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Billmayer, Jakob

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
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