THE ROLE OF SCIENCE CURRICULA IN THE EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN FROM SCIENCE: PRESENTING THE GREEK CASE

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the role of science curricula in the exclusion of pupils from science. Many researchers in the field of science education support that science curriculum development in many countries is based on educational practices which have nothing to do with children's interests, expectations and everyday life. Thus science courses appear to pupils not only boring but also detached from the real world. Science courses aim to educate pupils in a variety of "foreign" situations, using a terminology and a content (scientific theories, techniques, methods, terminology, symbols and formulae) that is neither familiar nor useful. Thus, pupils do not actively participate in science courses, and are indirectly "pushed" by the existing educational policy to scientific illiteracy leading to future citizens easier to manipulate. To obtain a scientific way of thinking, critical thinking and argumentation skills for dealing with scientific, political and environmental issues is important for pupils acquiring a socio-scientific understanding of the world around them. In this paper we use the SCAN (Science Curriculum Analysis) research model that we have developed in order to examine the Greek science curriculum. This analysis model focuses on four dimensions related to: a) knowledge, b) student practices, c) educational practices and d) social practices. We have already used this research model to analyze the Greek science curriculum. The PISA 2006 research results present Greece as a country with a high impact of students' background on their science performance. In other words, in Greece, pupils have more opportunities to succeed in science when they are coming from high socio-economic backgrounds. This fact has been the starting point of our analysis. The first findings of SCAN analysis of the Greek science curriculum support the idea that this science curriculum has a significant role in the exclusion of pupils from science. Goals within the science curriculum are mostly related to the hard core of scientific knowledge which referred to the academic world of science and appear isolated from everyday reality not welcoming pupils to science but rather excluding them from learning, understanding and enjoying science