• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.52-76
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• 2000

Following the previous study focused on the period until the middle of the 20th century, this study tried to show how STS-related ideas have been developed historically in British science education, particularly focused on the period of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Like the USA, the UK witnessed the development of numerous academically-oriented programs, such as Nuffield projects, during the 1950-60s. However, during the 1970s, there had been growing criticism against the discipline-centered science education and some new noticeable approaches had been made to compensate the contemporary trend. For example, although its main focus was on the integrated approach in school science, the SCISP was quite successful to illustrate the importance of the relationship between science and society. Following this example, Science in Society and SISCON-in-Schools were more ambitious in developing genuine STS programs. These two projects were developed simultaneously and took the form of modules, rather than of textbooks. Nevertheless, Science in Society was more concerned with the applied and industrial aspects of science while SISCON-in-Schools was more inclined to the historical, philosophical and social aspects of science. During the 1980s, far more ambitious attempts had been made to develop full-scale STS programs, i.e. Salters' Chemistry/Science and SATIS. These two programs have been developed with the active corporation from the ASE and soon became the typical examples of the STS approach across the world. Besides the similarities between them, Salters' approach is more application-oriented, subject-oriented, and textbook-like while SATIS is more socially-oriented, issue-oriented and module-style. In summary, the history of STS approach in school science shows that the STS programs were developed under the different social backgrounds and initiated by different groups of the people who have different views towards the purposes of school science and that the STS approach is certainly not the exclusive characteristic of the last period of the 20th century. Finally, the features of the major STS programs developed in Britain during the 20th century are summarized and compared in relation to the Ziman's criteria of the possible approaches in STS education. And some general conclusion are drown based on the study of the history of the STS approaches in Britain.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.409-427
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• 1999

The aim of this study was to illustrate how STS-related ideas in science education have been developed historically in the context of British education, particularly focused on the period of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It has been hardly considered that the basic ideas of the STS education, one of the two paradigms of current science education together with constructivism, can be traced back to the beginning of the school science education itself. far beyond some of the programs which are largely regarded as the first-developed STS programs in Britain, such as Science in Society and SISCON. The movement of Mechanics' Institute during the first half of the 19th century would be the first systematic attempt to bridge the gap between the knowledge of pure science and its practical applications, although the main target was working-class adults rather than school pupils. At the end of the first half of the 19th century, this application-focused approach of science teaching was echoed in the elementary schools by Richard Dawes, one of the early experimenters of school science. The second half of the century was in large the period of the establishment of science as one of the core elements of school curriculum, mainly by emphasizing the aspect of pure science as a means for mental training. During this period, the elements of STS education-related appeared in the subject called 'Object Lesson' in elementary schools which was practically a separate subject from those of science. After the turn of the century, triggered by the experience of World War I, the growing appreciation of the impacts of science upon society and of the necessity of the teaching of science for wider audience gave a great impact towards two new main movements, i.e. for General Science and Citizen Science. The later illustrates a typical example of the STS movement in school science during the first half of the 20th century, particularly driven by the socialistic ideas towards the relation between science and society.