The Contribution of Socioscientific Issues to Science Education: A United Kingdom Perspective

There are a number of arguments in favour of the greater inclusion of SSI in science education. In particular, SSI can be motivating for learners, give them a deeper understanding of how science is interdisciplinary, and help them appreciate the complexities of applying the science learnt in classrooms and labs to the real world. In the UK, though, SSI are under-used in science education, whether at primary, secondary or tertiary level. We examine the reasons for this by looking at the utility of SSI from a range of perspectives—including Stoicism and neoliberal understandings of education. A crucial aspect of Stoic philosophy, particularly relevant to SSI, is the Stoic view of physics as a necessary foundation or precursor for ethics. They believed that making informed ethical decisions required a deep understanding of the world in which these ethics were applied. This is because ethical principles are anchored in value judgments about what is significant and meaningful, but confined within the realm of what is realistically achievable. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has increasingly been the dominant ideology shaping school and higher education policy in the UK, maintaining that the education system should be managed according to the principles of a free market. We examine both Stoicism and criticisms of a neoliberal approach to school education and discuss how SSI might be used to contribute to the formation of scientific literacy, epistemic insight, and human flourishing at all three levels of formal education.