Humanising the nature of science: an analysis of the science curriculum in Norway

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of the Norwegian curriculum LK20. Texts in italics are specifications of the science curriculum.

LK20

(a) Core curriculum

Values and principles for primary and secondary education

(b) Curricula for subject disciplines

− About the subject

− The relevance and central values

− Core elements

o Scientific practices and ways of thinking

o Technology

o Energy and matter

o The Earth and life on Earth

o Body and health

− Interdisciplinary topics

o Public health and mastery of life

o Democracy and citizenship

o Sustainable development

− Basic skills

o Oral skills

o Writing

o Reading

o Numeracy

o Digital skills

Competence aims and assessment (For science: specified after year 2, 4, 7 and 10)

Table 2. FRA categories (adapted from Erduran & Dagher, 2014; Yeh et al., 2019).

Aims and values	The scientific enterprise is underpinned by adherence to a set of values that guide scientific practices. These aims and values are often implicit and they may include accuracy, objectivity, consistency, scepticism, rationality, simplicity, empirical adequacy, prediction, testability, novelty, fruitfulness, commitment to logic, viability and explanatory power
Scientific practices	The scientific enterprise encompasses a wide range of cognitive, epistemic, and discursive practices. Scientific practices such as observation, classification, and experimentation utilise a variety of methods to gather observational, historical, or experimental data. Cognitive practices, such as explaining, modelling and predicting, are closely linked to discursive practices involving argumentation and reasoning
Methods and methodological rules	Scientists engage in disciplined inquiry by utilising a variety of observational, investigative and analytical methods to generate reliable evidence and construct theories, laws, and models in a given science discipline, which are guided by particular methodological rules. Scientific methods are revisionary in nature, with different methods producing different forms of evidence, leading to clearer understandings and more coherent explanations of scientific phenomena.
Scientific knowledge	Theories, laws, and models (TLM) are interrelated products of the scientific enterprise that generate and/or validate scientific knowledge and provide logical and consistent explanations to develop scientific understanding. Scientific knowledge is holistic and relational, and TLM are conceptualised as a coherent network, not as discrete and disconnected fragments of knowledge.
Professional activities	Scientists engage in a number of professional activities to enable them to communicate their research, including conference attendance and presentation, writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, reviewing papers, developing grant proposals and securing funding.
Scientific ethos	Scientists are expected to abide by a set of norms both within their own work and during their interactions with colleagues and scientists from other institutions. These norms may include organised scepticism, universalism, communalism and disinterestedness, freedom and openness, intellectual honesty, respect for research subjects and respect for the environment.
Social certification and dissemination	By presenting their work at conferences and writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, scientists’ work is reviewed and critically evaluated by their peers. This form of social quality control aids in the validation of new scientific knowledge by the broader scientific community
Social values of science	The scientific enterprise embodies various social values including social utility, respecting the environment, freedom, decentralising power, honesty, addressing human needs and equality of intellectual authority.
Social organisations and interactions	Science is socially organised in various institutions including universities and research centres. The nature of social interactions among members of a research team working on different projects is governed by an organisational hierarchy. In a wider organisational context, the institute of science has been linked to industry and the defence force.
Political power structures	The scientific enterprise operates within a political environment that imposes its own values and interests. Science is not universal, and the outcomes of science are not always beneficial for individuals, groups, communities or cultures
Financial systems	The scientific enterprise is mediated by economic factors. Scientists require funding in order to carry out their work, and state- and national-level governing bodies provide significant levels of funding to universities and research centres. As such, these organisations have an influence on the types of scientific research funded and ultimately conducted

Figure 1. Word count distribution of the science curriculum texts.

Figure 2. Frequency of all the FRA codes. The four first categories from the left are features of science as a cognitive-epistemic system, whereas the remaining categories relates to science as a social-institutional system.

Figure 3. Overview of how aspects of NOS are represented in the various texts of the Norwegian science curriculum.

Erduran, S., & Dagher, Z. R. (2014). Reconceptualizing the nature of science for science education. Scientific knowledge, practices and other family categories (Vol. 43). Springer.

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Yeh, Y.-F., Erduran, S., & Hsu, Y.-S. (2019). Investigating coherence about nature of science in science curriculum documents. Science & Education, 28(3), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-019-00053-1

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