Digital and social media platforms have increasingly become public spaces to share and discuss information about socially relevant and controversial issues such as pandemics, climate change, and other socio-scientific topics. Since these issues are often controversial and open-ended, the information and knowledge claims about them sometimes trigger disagreements about truth and trustworthiness (Herman et al., 2022; Kolstø, 2001). While much of the information available about such issues does not always reflect the truth, as it is often tainted by inaccurate claims that have been misinterpreted, manipulated, and reshared within seconds with anyone around the world who is digitally connected (Ecker et al., 2024; Osborne et al., 2022).

Today, many young people use digital and social media platforms more than ever before, with Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube becoming their major sources of information. The practices on these platforms allow them to access a wide range of content, from daily lifestyle trends to more debatable topics such as health and environmental issues (Andersson & Öhman, 2017). These collective practices among young people today on the platform in accessing and sharing information have raised concerns that they may remain vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation while exploring their digital world. These dynamics highlight the importance of assisting young people in developing their competencies and providing them with the right tools they need to participate as informed and active democratic citizens in the digital world (European Commission, 2022).

The importance of teaching students to assess the trustworthiness of information and its sources is highlighted as a new skill set in the 2025 OECD PISA framework. This updated version provides a social mandate for teachers to equip students with the competencies needed to research, evaluate, and apply scientific information to inform their decision-making in daily life and social practices (OECD, 2023). While these new skill sets primarily focus on science education, the competencies required are complex and seem to span various school subjects. For instance, the competencies to search, evaluate, and communicate information from diverse sources, including scientific, social, economic, and ethical, require a broader focus beyond just science education. This raises important and critical questions about whether current teaching practices are suitable or whether more holistic and cross-disciplinary approaches are needed to address these complexities. These considerations bring attention to which aspects of pedagogical and didactical approaches should be prioritised and in which school subjects the competencies and knowledge should be enhanced and delivered.

Still, teachers play an important role in ensuring that students leave their classrooms with the skills and competencies needed to navigate information and knowledge claims in their social and digital world more critically. Despite this important role and the societal mandate placed on teachers, we still know very little about the practical conditions of teachers and their professional competencies in response to these ongoing discussions in their teaching practices. The study aimed to explore how teachers in some European countries reflect and negotiate the tensions of their internal, contextual, and practical aspects of professional practices at the school level concerning the ongoing phenomena of socio-scientific mis/disinformation and how such discussions have implications for their teaching and their professional responses in practice.

This study implemented a phenomenographic approach to explore how individuals, particularly teachers within a professional group, reflect on or are aware of a phenomenon related to their professional domain and the broader world around them (Marton, 1986; Säljö, 1997). The phenomenographic approach allowed the study to map the various ways teachers experience, conceptualise, perceive, and understand different aspects of ongoing phenomena and tensions within their current teaching practices at schools. This is especially relevant in light of ongoing discussions about the need to equip students with the right competencies to navigate information and knowledge claims in their social and digital worlds, as well as to explore the implications such discussions have for teaching and professional practices in general. This methodological approach offers a relational qualitative perspective that describes key variations in perceptions or conceptions of a phenomenon. It also allows the study to examine how teachers construct meaning in relation to internal, contextual, and practical aspects of their teaching and professional practices and how these perceptions and variations are interrelated. The study was conducted as part of the Erasmus+ teacher academy project SciLMi (Meta-Scientific Literacies in the Misinformation Age) and aims to provide qualitative insights into this project. The primary objective was to map the existing teaching practices and conditions of teachers across European countries and to explore their reflections on their understanding, beliefs, and professional roles in response to the ongoing issues and discussions of socio-scientific misinformation and disinformation. Furthermore, the study examined what forms of support teachers believe are necessary for developing their competencies in these areas and for integrating the competencies needed for their students into their existing teaching practices at schools. The study involved conducting individual semi-structured phenomenographic interviews with several secondary school teachers across European countries. The specific number of participants and countries will be provided during the conference presentation, as the interviews and analysis are still ongoing. The data were analysed using a phenomenographic methodology, with the theory of professional negotiation serving as an analytical lens. This theory is framed within the dimensions of internal, contextual, and practical negotiation and was used to trace the categories of description and the dimensions of variation in teachers’ professional responses in practice.

The findings are organised around three dimensions: (1) teachers’ internal negotiation, which highlights their professional understanding of ongoing phenomena, (2) teachers’ contextual negotiation, which examines how professional working conditions in schools and societal mandates influence teachers’ professional responses in practice, and (3) teachers’ practical negotiation, which focuses on the challenges and competencies needed for teachers to integrate or enhance the competencies required for their students into their existing teaching practices at schools. The expected findings indicate that teachers have varying levels of understanding when it comes to reasoning and reflecting on the meaning and complexities of misinformation, disinformation, and socio-scientific issues. Some teachers mentioned that they understand practical knowledge on how to evaluate the credibility of information sources and identify biased information. However, there are teachers who lack these skills and competencies, which impacts their professional practice and the pedagogical decisions they make when deciding to enhance these skills in their teaching at schools. Regarding beliefs about teaching socio-scientific misinformation, some teachers expressed that, although these topics are science-related, other subjects can also play an important role in fostering and building the necessary competencies and understandings within their existing teaching practices. Some teachers noted the need for more cross-disciplinary collaboration among teachers from different subjects. However, they also highlighted that cross-disciplinary collaboration could be challenging and may require time and effort to align the continuous practices at schools. The analysis showed that teachers find it difficult to teach these competencies because they are not explicitly included in the current school curricula, which may affect the assessment and learning objectives of the existing subjects. In addition, teachers indicated a need for more support in understanding the context surrounding the teaching of such topics and the integration of the competencies, along with practical guidance for integrating these practices into their existing subjects.

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