The Challenges of Scientific Literacy: From the viewpoint of second-generation cognitive science

Recent trends in cognitive science have not made scientific literacy easier to attain, but they have made the practices through which educators meet its challenges more interpretable. Traditionally, cognitive scientists viewed knowledge as a set of propositions comprised of classical concepts, thoug...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of science education Vol. 28; no. 2-3; pp. 143 - 178
Main Author Klein, Perry D.
Format Journal Article Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 15.02.2006
Taylor & Francis Group Journals
Taylor & Francis
Subjects
Cognitive Processes
Curriculum subjects: programmes and methods
Educational sciences
Epistemology
Exact and natural sciences
Inferences
Knowledge Level
Language Usage
Research Reports
Science Education
Scientific Literacy
Scientists
Teaching methods
Thinking Skills
Writing Skills
Language
Reasoning
Conceptualization
Science
Science Education
Metaphor
Cognitive psychology
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Summary:Recent trends in cognitive science have not made scientific literacy easier to attain, but they have made the practices through which educators meet its challenges more interpretable. Traditionally, cognitive scientists viewed knowledge as a set of propositions comprised of classical concepts, thought as logical inference and language as a literal representation of the world. They attributed the same denotative characteristics to cognition as to science text. In contrast, many contemporary cognitive scientists view knowledge as comprised of fuzzy and contextual concepts, thought as perceptually rather than formally grounded, and language as largely metaphorical and narrative. In this view the expressive characteristics of cognitive representations differ from the relatively denotative characteristics of science texts. Science literacy education bridges this difference through practices that help students: build classical concepts on a fuzzy cognitive architecture, achieve formally valid reasoning using perceptually driven operations, and construct written explanations and arguments using speech-like and narrative language.
ISSN:0950-0693
1464-5289
DOI:10.1080/09500690500336627