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Teaching SSI: Implications with Respect to Teachers’ Professional Identity

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Innovative Approaches to Socioscientific Issues and Sustainability Education

Part of the book series: Learning Sciences for Higher Education ((LSHE))

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Abstract

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are complex, controversial, uncertain, and value-laden issues, encompassing interdisciplinary knowledge for which there is no consensus in the scientific realm of producers of knowledge, and their teaching requires a change in the educational paradigm. Teachers of scientific disciplines are destabilized, as the didactic formats of the SSI field differ from the pedagogical formats of their own disciplinary culture. These different teaching contexts are thus likely to put the teachers’ professional identity under stress by subjecting them to new professional dilemmas both in their relationship to the profession and in their relationship to themselves. We analyze how experienced and novice teachers negotiate these difficulties and show how experienced teachers reconcile the different strata of their professional identity (disciplinary and SSI). In particular, they assume their values as a driving force behind their commitment to teaching SSI and they have gradually changed their work context to reduce the risk of teaching. We suggest that the professional development for future teachers should be based on pedagogical guides to make them feel safe in the classroom, it should also include training in ethics to deal with professional dilemmas, as well as interdisciplinary and team work to bring together disciplinary professional identities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Formation de L’Enseignement Agricole, UMR EFTS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Nathalie Panissal & Nicolas Hervé

Authors
  1. Nathalie Panissal
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  2. Nicolas Hervé
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Correspondence to Nicolas Hervé .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Ying-Shao Hsu

  2. Faculty of Arts and Education, School of Education, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia

    Russell Tytler

  3. Faculty of Arts and Education, School of Education, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia

    Peta J. White

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Panissal, N., Hervé, N. (2022). Teaching SSI: Implications with Respect to Teachers’ Professional Identity. In: Hsu, YS., Tytler, R., White, P.J. (eds) Innovative Approaches to Socioscientific Issues and Sustainability Education. Learning Sciences for Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1840-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1840-7_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-19-1839-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-19-1840-7

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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