Teachers’ Use of Newspaper Articles in Promoting a Humanistic Perspective of Science in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a qualitative research study on the feasibility of teachers using newspaper articles in advancing a humanistic perspective of science in teaching Grade 9 natural sciences to South African learners. Two key design principles were distilled in this design-based research: Newspaper articles can serve as a viable resource for teaching topics on socioscientific issues, and teachers can be supported professionally in developing pedagogical strategies in adopting a humanistic perspective approach in their teaching. The findings show that this approach using newspapers holds much promise for targeting learning goals that prepare citizens to critically and rationally assess socioscientific issues.

KEYWORDS:

• humane science perspectives
• newspapers
• socioscientific issues