A narrative inquiry into the reflective experiences of children, a homeroom teacher, and a researcher working with Science, Technology, and Society (STS) moral issues in an elementary classroom

The purpose of this study was to explore the reflective experiences of 5th grade children, their homeroom teacher, and a researcher as they worked with STS reflective activities in a Korean elementary classroom. This study was based on the basic assumption that growing children's reflective capacity to know and transform their moral selves and the existential conditions of science and technology is a key dynamic of educating responsible citizens who can promote the positive use of science and technology. Thus, STS reflective activities were developed and taught through the collaborative efforts between a homeroom teacher and a researcher based on society-based STS education, humanistic values, and children's experiential life. Because the reflective experiences of all the participants are a larger storied life, the collected data were cohesively threaded into a storied account based on the shared meanings of our narrative experiences as a teacher and as a researcher.;The generated stories provided parents and educators with some educational insights. First, this study showed that science and technology exist as a variety of dynamic entities which can create or alienate children's life meanings. Some children coped with their living conditions of science and technology successfully while others struggled. Parents' responsible caring was the fundamental dynamic which enabled children to grow and strengthen the capacity to cope with their STS issues. Second, this study showed that children can grow and strengthen the reflective moral capacity to cope with their existential conditions of science and technology based on their unique personalities, abilities, interests, and social settings through reflective guidance. All the 15 student participants were equipped with desirable humanistic and critical moral capacities to cope with their STS issues in unique ways. Third, this study showed that the homeroom teacher's responsible caring played a great role in helping many children who were struggling with science and technology mainly because of the lack of a caring family environment. Fourth, this study showed that children's reflection took on more powerful life meanings through the dialogical mode of reflection and action.;Considering the above shared understandings, this study suggests, first, that parents provide their children with responsible caring to grow and strengthen their capacity to cope with the STS issues they face in everyday life, and, second, that educators provide children with a reflective space in which they can develop their moral capacity to live with others in an age of technology and globalization.