Contemporary societies face significant challenges in dealing with issues such as climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic as well as disinformation and pseudo-science. Within the European context, the importance of scientific literacy as a component of curriculum innovation has been identified as a means to deal with such challenges, for instance through equipping learners with the tools to navigate and critically address the vast amounts of information exchanged in public debate, and support democratic processes (Siarova, Sternadel & Szőnyi, 2019). Understanding different aspects of NOS has been argued to contribute to scientific literacy (Matthews, 2016). NOS is about different aspects of science such as the aims, values, methods, practices and social context of science. Aspects of NOS have been included in policy documents from the European Commission as part of particular scientific competences (O’Carroll et al., 2017). As an area of research in science education, NOS has gained much attention (Abd-el-Khalick, 2012; Allchin, 2011; Lederman et al., 2002). The paper presents an empirical investigation into the coverage of nature of science (NOS) in the physics, chemistry and biology curricula in England. It is important to investigate the curriculum content on NOS because curricula are important resources that teachers use when making these plans and preparing the lesson content. In previous curriculum analyses, researchers have used various frameworks on NOS to trace its representation in science curricula. For example, Kaya and Erduran (2016) used the Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN) which is the current framework on the nature of science (e.g. Erduran & Dagher, 2014; Irzik & Nola, 2014). This framework considers NOS as a cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional system, and as such it is  fairly broad and it can capture a wide range of aspects of science. It has been applied as an analytical framework, for example in the analysis of assessment documents (e.g. Cheung, 2020).  RFN has not been applied to the analysis of physics, chemistry and biology curricula (DfE, 2013; 2014) in England. Tracing how NOS is represented in physics, chemistry and biology curricula can shed light on how such different fields of science are conceptualised in science curricula. The study was guided by the following research questions: (a) How is NOS covered in the physics, chemistry and biology curricula at Key Stage 4 level in England? (b) What are the similarities and differences in how NOS is represented in the curricula of different sciences of physics, chemistry and biology? In order to address these research questions, a content analysis method proposed by Elo ve Kyngäs (2008) was used. This method consists of 3 steps: preparation, organizing, and reporting. In the preparation step, the unit of analysis and theoretical framework are selected. The unit of analysis was selected as sentences in the curricula in this study. Furthermore, Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN) (Kaya & Erduran, 2016) was selected as the theoretical framework of the analysis. The organizing step includes creating the analysis matrices and coding based on the categories. RFN consists of the following categories: (a) cognitive-epistemic: aims and values, methods, practices and knowledge, and (b) social-institutional: social values, scientific methods, social certification and dissemination, social organisations and interactions, financial systems and political power structures. Results and findings for each curriculum analysis is presented highlighting the trends in the coverage of the key RFN categories. A significant finding is that the social-institutional categories were underrepresented in all curricula. Furthermore, only the introductory sections of the curricula included the majority of the RFN categories which were mainly about the cognitive-epistemic aspects of NOS. They were not integrated into the sections that covered the content knowledge.

The data sources are curriculum documents for Key Stage 4 (KS4) in England (Department for Education, 2014). KS4 in England involves 10th and 11th year students (from 14 to 16 years old). The curriculum document consists of 5 main sections: Introduction, Working Scientifically, Subject Content: Biology, Subject Content: Chemistry, and Subject Content: Physics. The introduction section emphasizes the aims and significance of teaching science. “Working scientifically” section includes 4 subsections which are “The development of scientific thinking”, “Experimental skills and strategies'', “Analysis and evaluation”, and “Vocabulary, units, symbols and nomenclature”. In this study, we call the ‘introduction’ and “working scientifically” sections in the curriculum as ‘Introductory’ sections. In the 3 subject-content (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) sections, the goals and significance of each subject and the specific topics in each subject are presented. The extent to which the physics, chemistry and biology curricula in England contain NOS was analyzed qualitatively through the adapted version of a content analysis method proposed by Elo ve Kyngäs (2008) and consists of 3 steps: preparation, organizing, and reporting. The unit of analysis was selected as sentences in the curricula. Furthermore RFN (Kaya & Erduran, 2016) was selected for coding the text. For example, the biology curriculum refers to the following statements which are coded under the “aims and values” category: “The study of biology involves collecting and interpreting information about the natural world to identify patterns and relate possible cause and effect. Biology is used to help humans improve their own lives and to understand the world around them.” This episode is coded as an instance of “aims and values” of science because it points to what biology aims to accomplish (e.g. collect and interpret information) and the values it possesses (e.g. help humans to improve their lives). For example, for the “Aims and Values” category, “aim, value, objectivity, novelty, accuracy, empirical adequacy, critical examination, etc.”; for the “Scientific Practices” category, “observation, experiment, data, model, classification, prediction, argumentation, explanation, etc.”; for the “Professional Activities” category, “conference, article, presentation, writing, publication, etc.” were used as key words. For the interrater reliability, the researchers carried out coding independently. Then the results were checked in terms of consistency of analysis.

The results show that the curricula include more references to the categories of the epistemic and cognitive aspects of science as compared to social-institutional aspects. The social-institutional categories were the least represented. Most references to NOS were found in the introductory section of the curriculum. While the biology, chemistry and physics sections include a few references to cognitive and epistemic categories, they practically do not include any reference to the social-institutional categories. The chemistry and physics sections do not include any keyword about social-institutional categories. Moreover, there are no references to “Social Organizations and Interactions” and “Political Power Structures” categories in the curriculum. The underrepresentation of the social-institutional aspects of NOS in the English science curricula is concerning considering the imminent role that understanding such aspects are critical in contemporary socioscientific issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate change emergency. Such pressing concerns demand scientific literacy not only in terms of the cognitive and epistemic aspects of science but also the broader societal context of science. For example, in the context of the Covid-19 informed citizenship would require understanding not only what a virus is (ie. biology) and how virus particles might be transmitted (i.e. chemistry) but also how the economic and political decision-making around the pandemic and its impact on society (i.e. social institutions). If science education is to contribute to problem-solving about such pressing issues in society (O’Carroll et al., 2017), it will need to embrace a broader vision for how NOS is treated in teaching and learning. As a broad framework, RFN affords for the identification of the current limitations of science curricula and it holds the potential to provide recommendations for curriculum reform and innovation. The present study illustrates in concrete terms which aspects of NOS can be developed further in the curriculum.

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