Sts Education: Challenges And Reflection

In the past ten or more years,Science,Technology and Society (STS) Education Movement has been considered as a main force in science education reform. However,STS is not a simple model or distinct theory of science education,but it is a science education reform movement with many different purposes,many different perspectives,many different starting points and different historical context. The basic purpose of STS movement is to urge that science education adapt to the swift change around the world. In the dissertation,the author is not going to expound and prove what STS education is,but to explore what STS education should be. By this way,we can look on science education development and future prospects with transcendental perspectives.Although some science educators have recognized that STS education movement will make great influences on science,education reform in China,they has not made more deeply study and exploration on it. Because many people think about STS education in traditional science education perspectives,and they pay more attention on the operational level of the STS education,they ignore the deeper social and cultural significance. These people have not yet take the impacts of STS on science education seriously. These impacts include:Scientific Literacy Education in science education field,Democratization in science education,Comprehensive understanding in science education,Pluralism education in science education and Open to external world in science education. Therefore,by researching on the history and current situation of STS education,the author tried to explore the impacts and challenges of STS education on science education,to think about the deeper social and cultural significance of the theories and practice of STS education,to propose some ideas and suggestions for science education reform and science curriculum design in China.This dissertation is composed of four chapters:The analysis and research on the context of the emergence and development of STS education,the analysis and thinking about the theories and meanings of STS education,the analysis and thinking about the practices of STS education,the ideas and suggestions for science education and science curriculum design in China.In chapter one,the author started with three parts on the context of STS education:First,the author discussed the foot and form of the emergent science education crisis,tried to announce the epistemological context of STS education;Second,the author described some debates on the definition and issues of STS education,proposed some ideas that STS education movement is a cultural strategy carried in science education;Third,the author described the social and science educational context of the emergence and development of STS education,presented the strategic action of STS taken in science education from the perspectives of historical development.In chapter two,the author discussed and thought about the theories and practicesof STS education on the basis of discussing some issues about scientific literacy education,comprehensive understanding in STS education,and the problem about the "legitimatization" of STS education. The author considered that these issues are related to the future development of STS education,to the democratization of science education,to the comprehensive understanding and pluralism in science education,to the self-perfection of science education. Thus,the author considered that these issues involve in the basic problems in science education.In chapter three,the author tried to present the characters of the strategic transformation of STS education further by describing the practices of STS education. Whether the theories about STS education practices or the action strategy of STS education - curriculum,or the science educational context on which STS education practice,all have been changed fundamentally. These changes have revealed the revolution of the paradigm of science education.In the last chapter,the author proposed a conception on STS cumculum on the b...