The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss similarities and differences between the curricula in Science Education in Sweden, France and Switzerland in order to provide the background of future analyses of actual classroom practices in these countries that we will perform in the next stage of our project (Almqvist, 2012). Ligozat (2011) showed that the logics of the classroom actions in teaching mathematics rely upon certain pedagogical/ideological pre-constructs and teaching habits, that can be partially related to curriculum texts and teaching materials. Östman (1996) found three different teaching traditions in Science Education from Swedish textbooks analyses: the academic tradition spreads the idea that the mere products and methods of science are worth to be taught. The applied tradition focuses on explanations about usual technical objects and to increase the students’ autonomy in their everyday life. The moral tradition opens up to the relationship between science and society and makes students think about the decisions that they will have to make as future citizens. The goal of this paper is to identify how much space each of these traditions takes up within the curriculum texts of the three countries. In this regard, our analyses take into account the following dimensions: 1) The goals of science education as presented in the global recommendations of the curricula; 2) The organization and division of the content itself. 3) The learning outcomes expected from the students in terms of concepts, skills and/or scientific literacy requirements (Venturini & Tiberghien, 2012) and 4) the teaching methods expected from the teacher. Through all these criteria, it is possible to identify certain teaching traditions in the French, Western Swiss and Swedish curricula. Indeed, we could notice that the academic tradition is rather strongly embedded in the three cases, whereas the applied and the moral traditions are present in a more obvious way in the Swedish Curriculum.

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