What is environment, health and science education in Argentina today for?

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of social representations (RS) about the purposes of science education and teaching role, framed in an in-service teacher’s instruction and collaborative work experience with teachers from different educational levels of the Province of Buenos Aires. The RS of teacher’s role showed vocational, professional and political dimensions. The latter emerged strongly in the innovations which involved concrete processes of citizen participation with students. As purposes appeared different aspects of the RS: education for citizenship, science as culture, science useful for everyday life, the propaedeutic purpose and scientific literacy. We contrast these findings with curriculum documents and proposals for educational theorists in the natural sciences on these issues