The Science-Technology-Society Movement

Educationalists Dewey (1916) and Benjamin (1939) inspired science educators to develop students' capacities to function as responsible, savvy participants in a world increasingly affected by science and technology (Aikenhead, 2005). This current thought originally led to teaching the history and philosophy of science in schools (Fensham, 1992; Matthews, 1994). However, when science educators embraced social responsibility, engendered by environmentalism and by the emergent sociology of science, humanistic science became identified with a movement called, "science-technology-society," STS (Ziman, 1980).

Calvin & Hobbes

Conceptual Framework for STS

A conceptual framework for STS was achieved through the integration of two broad academic fields:

1. The interactions of science and scientists with social issues and institutions external to the scientific community, and
2. The social interactions of scientists and their communal, epistemic, and ontological values internal to the scientific community

A humanistic perspective incorporates both of the above fields.