Kuhn in the classroom, Lakatos in the lab: Science educators confront the nature-of-science debate

Programs for the reform of K-12 science leaching today usually insist that science teachers must introduce their students to the nature of science, as well as to scientific content. The academic field of science studies, howe ver evinces no consensus about what the nature of science really is. This a rticle examines how science educators and educational researchers have draw n on the fragmented teachings of science studies about the nature of scienc e, and how they have used those teachings as a resource in their own projec ts. It identifies three competing movements for the reform of science teach ing that owe a particular debt to science studies: history and philosophy o f science (HPS) science, technology, and society (STS), and constructivist pedogogy. The article analyzes some of the deep assumptions about the relat ionships between research science, school science, and children's learning that pervade the educational literature.