Epistemological Foundations for Science Education

Abstract

The teaching of science as an object of study of the didactics of experimental sciences has been configured as an increasingly complex phenomenon that leads to the use of theoretical and metatheoretical frameworks or foundations with similar degrees of complexity. This complexity is linked to the increasingly sophisticated ways in which science didactics comprises the construction of school scientific representations and the variables involved in their dynamics, associated not only with specific content but also with the social, epistemological, cultural, ethical, emotional, etc., aspects that correspond, to a greater or lesser extent, with those aspects that also influence the construction of scholarly scientific knowledge. In this sense, analyzing the teaching of science based on its epistemological background has led the didactics of science to resort to a variety of metatheoretical resources that are configured in well-defined lines of research and theoretical frameworks in Latin America. In this chapter, we review some of the epistemological approaches and foundations that provide guidelines for understanding science teaching and developing school scientific representations strongly crossed by epistemological, social, ethical, and cultural dimensions. To this end, we address three approaches associated with strong epistemological components that support current classroom practices in Latin American didactics. The first of these is the didactical approach related to the understanding and depiction of school science. It constitutes a current characterization of “school science” that was initially proposed by Mercé Izquierdo-Aymerich et al. (1999), whose place in our latitudes has been established, refined, and developed increasingly in the last 20 years (Adúriz-Bravo, 2020; IzquierdoAymerich & Adúriz-Bravo, 2021). The second approach addresses the foundations of the so-called nature of science (Bagdonas & Silva, 2013) and, in particular, the orientation toward semanticist positions of the philosophy of science as a metatheoretical correlate in the construction of a nature of science for the various levels of science education (Adúriz-Bravo & Ariza, 2013). The third approach is positioned in the current concept of “post-normal science” (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 2000) as the foundation for science classes and provides guidance for classroom activities.