Encouraging Citizenship in Science Education: Continuing Questions and Hopeful Possibilities

Abstract

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education invokes questions intended to further the discourse of citizenship in science and mathematics education, such as, How do we define citizen and democracy? Is our call for student action hypocritical? Does positioning school science through the work of Rancière present a “straw man” argument for change? To what extent does the ghost of John Dewey animate and inform a “wild pedagogy” in science education? Challenging the view of the science and mathematics curriculum as a barrier to overcome, this article argues that possibilities for developing citizenship and critical thinking can be found and developed in existing curriculum formations and practices of school science and mathematics education.