Titulo do Projecto: “Biology, health and Environmental education for better Citizenship”

The aim of this project is to improve understanding of how different aspects of citizenship, including affective and social dimensions, are promoted or may possibly be promoted through Biology, Health and Environmental Education.

We will develop a critical analysis of syllabi and schoolbooks as well as of teachers’ and teachers-to-be’ conceptions (social representations: systems of values as well as scientific knowledge).

What are the teachers’ systems of values, including social and affective dimensions, about nature, body and health, sexuality, biologic determinism, evolution? Are their values interacting with their scientific knowledge? Are there differences among countries? Such differences, can they be associated to controlled parameters (gender, disciplines, religion, socio-economic context, recent history of the country, etc.)? This work will be largely comparative across the 18 countries involved in the project, using the same concepts and methods coming from science education, epistemology and sociology / psycho-sociology, through two approaches as much extensive as possible:

- Critical analysis of the selected topics in syllabi and schoolbooks of primary and secondary school as well as in teachers’ training courses.

- Analysis of teachers’ and teachers-to-be’ conceptions from questionnaires regarding implicit values related to each topic.

Altogether, the results obtained from this project will be published in scientific papers, delivered as appropriate to policy-makers, to national and European teachers’ associations and to the general public in order to contribute to promote citizenship’ scientific literacy and to improve citizenship in scientific knowledge based societies.