TY - JOUR
T1 - Commentary
T2 - To the future - Arguments for scientific literacy
AU - Maienschein, Jane
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1999/9
Y1 - 1999/9
N2 - Even while demanding improvements in science education because of a deplorable lack of scientific literacy, advocates do not agree about what they mean. "Scientific literacy" has become a buzz phrase to capture different things, a confusion that is useful at times because it allows people to think they agree when they really do not. Yet, hiding disagreements also keeps us from understanding how we might make things better. This commentary explores the most common meanings and distinguishes scientific literacy - or the democratic having of creative, scientific "habits of mind" by everybody - from science literacy - or the having of particular scientific knowledge by trained experts. Both are important, and we must not lose track of the more difficult and long-term goal of achieving scientific literacy for everybody in the urgency of producing short-term results in the form of scientific knowledge by the few.
AB - Even while demanding improvements in science education because of a deplorable lack of scientific literacy, advocates do not agree about what they mean. "Scientific literacy" has become a buzz phrase to capture different things, a confusion that is useful at times because it allows people to think they agree when they really do not. Yet, hiding disagreements also keeps us from understanding how we might make things better. This commentary explores the most common meanings and distinguishes scientific literacy - or the democratic having of creative, scientific "habits of mind" by everybody - from science literacy - or the having of particular scientific knowledge by trained experts. Both are important, and we must not lose track of the more difficult and long-term goal of achieving scientific literacy for everybody in the urgency of producing short-term results in the form of scientific knowledge by the few.
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U2 - 10.1177/1075547099021001003
DO - 10.1177/1075547099021001003
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0033196471
SN - 1075-5470
VL - 21
SP - 75
EP - 87
JO - Science Communication
JF - Science Communication
IS - 1
ER -