Scientific literacy and scientific education: consensus and controversies

Abstract

Nowadays, scientific education and scientific literacy are closely related, in spite of the fact that these expressions are not interchangeable or mutually exclusive. The correlation between these expressions lies on the fact that both deal with science teaching. Thus, it is the general belief that an ideal science education promotes scientific literacy. However, from the perspective of the educator’s practice, an analysis of the main references in the field show that such concepts are not properly defined. This paper presents a study of the literature and demonstrates that there is a gap between theoretical propositions on scientific literacy and educators’ real-life actions in class. This study also demonstrates that there is no consensus in establishing when a student may be qualified as ‘scientific literate’.