New Perspectives in Science Education

There’s a close relationship between a country’s persistence and the scientific and technological level it has. This requires and effective and efficient science education. Effective science education is possible with qualified and functional science curricula, because the real factors that make students qualified in instruction process are the teachers and the curricula.

Secondary school science curricula have been reorganized in the context of the major educational reform applied in 2004 in Turkey. This reform named “radical” by academicians was named by Ministry of Education as “a change in paradigms”. With the reform stated, science curricula which were philosophically based on essentialism and on Newtonist approach in aspects of scientific understanding, were stated to be reorganized based on the Quantum paradigm and Reconstructivist approach.

The aim of this study emerging from the doubts stated is to analyze the secondary school science curricula reorganized in the context of the 2004 reform and changed in some aspects according to the quantum paradigm. The data of the study held in qualitative model and documentary analyses model are the secondary school science curricula that are reorganized by Ministry of Education and that are in application and scientific researches, news and reports. These data are analyzed using the content analysis method and  grouped in certain titles. These analyses are commented by making a synthesis of the literature and some results are reached.

The results of the study can be summarized as follows: In Turkey, the secondary school science curricula reorganized in the context of the 2004 reform are based on the philosophy of progressivism and designed according to the reconstructivist approach, student centered and active curriculum approach. In these curricula which put forward learning rather than education, some contemporary theories and understandings such as cooperative learning and multiple intelligence theory are given. But however the Ministry of Education states that these curricula aer based on the quantum paradigm, important traces of the Newton understanding are found in the analyses of these curricula. This determination not only shades the reform held by the Ministry of Education in 2004 and named as “a change in paradigms” but also shows that secondary school students in Turkey are not equipped with contemporary science knowledge,  because the quantum paradigm is accepted to be the scientific understanding of the day. If this is true, it is compulsory for Turkey to re-analyze secondary school science curricula in order not to fall behind in science education.

            Keywords: Science Curricula, Science Education, Quantum Paradigm, Secondary School, Curriculum Reform.