Exploring International Perspectives of Scientific Literacy: An Overview of the Special Issue

Scientific literacy has become something of a catch cry in science education circles worldwide. The nature of scientific literacy and how scientific literacy is developed and enacted in classrooms is explored in this special issue. An overview of the papers presented in this special issue suggests that many authors struggle to clearly define scientific literacy, and that its use in science education is muddled. We argue here that educators and curriculum developers first need to contextualize the notion of scientific literacy in their own particular educational setting before considering how it might advance science education.