How literacy in its fundamental sense is central to scientific literacy

TLDR

Scientific literacy research focuses on derived literacy while overlooking the fundamental sense of literacy, which this paper defines and contrasts with basic reading and writing. The study proposes reinterpreting scientific literacy by incorporating the fundamental sense of literacy and examines its educational implications for science teaching. The authors find that current conceptions of scientific literacy omit a central component—the fundamental sense of literacy. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/sce.10066.

Abstract

Abstract This paper draws upon a distinction between fundamental and derived senses of literacy to show that conceptions of scientific literacy attend to the derived sense but tend to neglect the fundamental sense. In doing so, they fail to address a central component of scientific literacy. A notion of literacy in its fundamental sense is elaborated and contrasted to a simple view of reading and writing that still has much influence on literacy instruction in schools and, we believe, is widely assumed in science education. We make suggestions about how scientific literacy would be viewed differently if the fundamental sense of literacy were taken seriously and explore some educational implications of attending to literacy in its fundamental sense when teaching science. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 87: 224–240, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/sce.10066