In contemporary societies citizens are increasingly confronted with pressing societal issues with connections to science, termed socioscientific issues, SSI (Ratcliffe & Grace, 2003). It is therefore argued that an important aim of science education is that all students acquire knowledge, skills and intellectual attitudes useful for dealing with SSI that they may encounter in daily life and for engaging in civic reasoning and discourse about such issues (OECD, 2018; Lee, White & Dong, 2021). This broad objective for science education is often referred to as scientific literacy (Roberts & Bybee, 2014). To foster students’ scientific literacy, it has been suggested that SSI be incorporated into science curricula, providing opportunities for students to explore both knowledge and values at stake in the context of current issues, by means of student-centred classroom practices involving discourse-based activities (Zeidler, 2014). However, the incorporation of SSI as contexts for teaching studying and learning may require a transformation of prevailing approaches to science teaching, typically characterized by transmissive pedagogy and a focus on students’ learning of content knowledge and training of practical skills (Lundqvist & Sund, 2018; Lyons, 2006), placing new demands on teachers and students. Teachers may have to expand their traditional role as conveyors of scientific knowledge, while students will have to learn to deal with the insecurity associated with value-laden issues that lack a single clear-cut answer. Despite calls for fostering students’ scientific literacy to deal with SSI, the products and methods of science is also still foregrounded in contemporary science curricula in many countries as well as in international standardized assessments (Marty et al., 2018; Roberts & Bybee, 2014). For teachers who aspire to incorporate SSI into their teaching, the process will thus be conditioned by their professional skills, traditions, national curricula, and diverse expectations.

Although there is an increasing interest in teachers’ professional development associated with incorporating SSI into science teaching, research in the field is still scarce. There is thus a need for more research that focuses on teachers’ considerations, decisions, and actions in relation to the incorporation of SSI to provide in-depth understanding of how teaching can be developed to foster students’ scientific literacy and how teachers can be supported in this process (Chen & Xiao, 2021; Friedrichsen et al., 2020).

This study explores the process by which two science teachers incorporate SSI into their teaching for the promotion of students’ scientific literacy, to identify how the teachers negotiate, reconsider, and develop teaching practices within the prevailing conditions. Through the framework of didactics, that enables reflection on educational questions concerning purpose, objective, content, and methods (Hudson, 2002), the study aims at providing knowledge about how teaching can be developed to incorporate SSI and the conditions for this development. Didactics understands teaching as framed by societal goals, the curriculum, teaching traditions, and teachers’ and students’ knowledge and intentions. In this respect, it contains a critical element which implies “reflection on relations between school and instruction on the one hand (their goals, contents, forms of organization and methods) and social conditions and processes on the other” (Klafki, 1995, p. 14).

In the analysis of teaching, the relations between teacher, student(s) and subject matter are essential to consider, as is also the context of the school and the wider society within which the situation is situated (Hudson & Meyer, 2011). Using these relations as a starting point, the study seeks to answer the following research questions:
What dimensions of teaching-studying-learning situations do the teachers strive to develop?
What conditions facilitate or impede this development?

The setting of this study was the subject “Science Studies” in the Swedish upper secondary school. Science Studies is compulsory for students who do not specialize in science or technology. The subject covers aspects of sustainable development, human sexuality and relationships, individual health and lifestyle, and biotechnology and its implications. Some of its aims are that the students “develop an understanding of how scientific knowledge can be used in both professional life and everyday situations”, and that students are enabled “to make personal choices and form their views”. By taking part in discussions on societal issues, students should get opportunities to develop their science knowledge “to be able to meet, understand and influence their own contemporary conditions” (Skolverket, 2011, p. 1). The study involved two science teachers that were interested in incorporating SSI into teaching for the promotion of students’ scientific literacy. They participated in an action research project in collaboration with an educational researcher, who acted as a critical friend throughout the project. The research process involved cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting to evaluate the effects of action (Cohen et al., 2018). The teachers made an initial overall plan for four teaching units that were to be implemented and evaluated over the course of a school year. Each unit corresponded to a cycle in the action research process. Throughout the project, the teachers regularly observed each other’s lessons. They made field-notes during observations and wrote records of lessons they taught themselves, comprising notes about actions, observations, interpretations, feelings, and evaluations, as recommended by Kemmis et al. (2014). This documentation formed the basis for collaborative inquiry and reflection during regular meetings between the teachers and the researcher. During these meetings, the teachers reconsidered decisions and teaching strategies and readjusted their planning. The teachers were invited to participate in accordance with Swedish ethical guidelines for social science research (Swedish Research Council, 2017). The teachers’ written records of lessons, their field-notes of observations, and transcripts of recorded meetings between the teachers and the researcher were analysed. Based on the framework of didactics, initial codes were generated by identifying segments of data that concerned relations between teacher, student(s), and subject matter, as well as conditions for teaching studying and learning that were addressed by the teachers. Subsequently, commonalities or distinguishing features between initial codes were explored inductively to construct final themes (Robson, 2016).

From the teachers’ reflections, it could be concluded that subject matter relevant to the negotiation of SSI should be introduced on a need-to-know basis in relation to students’ interest and questions, rather than completely determined beforehand. Scientific products in terms of core scientific facts and principles, as well as knowledge and skills regarding scientific processes were introduced and dealt with in teaching, alongside generic skills such as critical thinking and evidence-based argumentation. They strived to facilitate and make arrangements for students’ studying and engagement with SSI by developing strategies to support students’ ability to ask questions and explore diverse perspectives on issues. At the same time, the teachers developed strategies to support students’ understanding of core scientific facts and principles and their ability to apply scientific knowledge in the exploration of SSI. Throughout this process, their collaborative inquiry and reflection facilitated transformation of practices. As regard teacher-student relationships, the teachers struggled throughout the project to support students’ independence and confidence in their own abilities, to facilitate their adaption to new demands and expectations. Students’ previous school science experiences, that promoted students’ reproduction of knowledge, seemed to impede the development of new teaching-studying-learning practices. Another impediment was a perceived lack of consensus among the teachers of the school regarding the value of supporting students' exploration of issues and not just their products and achievements. In the presentation, the results will be discussed in relation to teachers' professional skills, teaching traditions and national curricula.

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