The development of responsible citizenship is fundamental goal of every country and achieving technological and scientific literacy is one of the permanent goals of every country’s educational policy. Inevitably, science education which intends to train scientific literate is a vital attribute of attaining desirable citizenship which the society needs. That’s way the reciprocal-beneficiary relationship between science education and citizenship education is inevitable.
The major issue in science education is to educate individuals who are active reasoners, critical thinkers, problem solvers, decision makers, and life long learners (MoNE, 2005a). On the other hand, the social studies focus on educate individuals who are sensitive and responsible to their surroundings, are able to construct their own knowledge in social and cultural context according to their experiences, have higher order social participation, and able to use and understand technologies(MoNE, 2005b). In short, both social studies and science education have the same intent that is training their students as technological and scientific literate citizenships through their curricula.
Recently, since the end of 1970’s, the science education researchers have been agreed that science-technology-society approach should be included in science education curricula (Zeidler, Sadler, Simmons and Howes, 2005). After that, every country reflects this approach in their educational curricula in a different form. For instance,Italyfocused on socio-scientific issues, whileCanadaadapted this approach by including environmental dimension (Aikenhead, 2003). On the other hand, Norway conceptualized the approach as science-technology-citizenship since they focused on educating students who have concern about nature, national citizenship and the relationship between them (Aikenhead, 2002). As it is obvious, every country has its own history about STS approach.
Science-Technology-Society (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that includes interconnection between science and technology, their impact on each other, and their mutual impact on society. Science and technology are embedded in social and cultural context where they are constructed. Students need to comprehend how science and technology shape our understanding and lifestyle, and how social values and societal needs orient and invest scientific and technological development. All of needs are emphasized both science and social studies curricula separately. Thus, the content of both social studies and science curricula include common educational acquisitions and standards, especially in terms of (STS) approach. However, little has been done to integrate these two in practice. They are seen as separate and unrelated curricula. It is needed to emphasize the reciprocal-beneficiary relationship between science education and social studies.
That’s way the aim of the study is to evaluate the similarities and differences of the social studies and science curricula inTurkey, which have parallel viewpoints about the technological and scientific literacy, in terms of their educational acquisitions and standards about STS.
