Page 128 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 8
Moral–Ethical Character and Science
Education: EcoJustice Ethics Through

Socioscientific Issues (SSI)

Michael P. Mueller and Dana L. Zeidler

Socioscientific issues (SSI) provide situations where science teachers and students
analyze complex issues associated with ethical, political, and social dilemmas, such
as whether animals should be kept in zoos or whether plants should be genetically
modified. While engaging in socioscientific issues, students become informed about
scientific conditions and develop epistemological styles for dealing with scientific
research and the consequences thereof. During a time of increasing awareness around
cultural diversity, biodiversity, and ecological degradations, epistemic development
is paramount for helping students evaluate how they frame their relationships
with others including nonhuman species and physical environments. In this regard,
social justice movements have been too limited and exclusive, with a higher priority
for humankind. Social justice, as currently conceptualized in the science education
literature, is seldom extended to nonhuman animals, plants, and the land. Social
justice is often associated with disparities between the haves and have-nots, which
is historically contrived with middle-class values, norms, and conventions. It is
inherently limited to what is considered right for humans without considering how
decisions convened around social justice will impact nonhumans.
When scholars say that life is sacred they rarely bestow that principle beyond
the human condition. Otherwise, social justice would apply to life in all its variant
forms. Killing a rat in the name of science would be just as wrong as murdering a
human being. This is where ecojustice is a more encompassing paradigm which
expands and enlarges social justice to consider the intertwined relationships among
humans, nonhumans, and the Earth. The aim is for educational reformers, school
administrators, teachers, children, and so forth, to better protect the local commu-
nity and environments from possible global community threats, by framing conver-
sations around the needs of diverse cultures, biodiversity, and ecosystems.
The first premise of our chapter is that ecojustice can offer a diversity
of perspectives needed by stakeholders for local policy and school reform.

M.P. Mueller
University of Georgia
D.L. Zeidler
University of South Florida

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 105
Cultural Studies of Science Education Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_8,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010