<p> Over the past several decades, science advocacy organizations have increasingly participated in discussions of the relationship between science and religion to the public, mainly to counteract the resurgence of anti-evolution activities across the country, to address misconceptions and misunderstandings about science and religion, and to help make science more palatable and less threatening to religious believers. These engagements with religion have primarily involved four organizations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (SNMNH). In their engagements with religion, each of these organizations has simultaneously employed two distinct lines of operation: (1) defending science against anti-science religions and movements and (2) engaging science-friendly religions and the religious public. These lines of operation are driven by key objectives and supported by specific strategies and tactics to achieve those objectives, which this paper seeks to explore and analyze. Key findings and recommendations for science advocacy organizations' ongoing and future engagements with religion are provided.</p>

In this thesis I employ a constructivist epistemological stance (principally influenced by that due to George Kelly) to critically examine the curricular response to contemporary notions of truth, objectivity and knowledge. I take science education (at both Secondary and Tertiary levels) as ray special reference within the education system. An important part of my work explores students' and teachers' personal meanings of science and scientific method, i. e. alternative conceptions of science, and I see it as contributing to the growing body of research concerned with alternative conceptions in science: the 'Alternative Conceptions Movement' (ACM) in educational research. To help articulate ray views on these matters I use an augmented version of a framework or model, developed by my immediate colleagues, for conceptualising cognitive aspects of science education and the transformation of scientific knowledge. My version of this framework features components under the following main headings: 'Scientists'-Science', 'Philosophers'-Science', 'Curricular-Science', 'Teachers'-Science', 'Students'-Science', and 'Childrens'-Science'. I argue that, suitably augmented and interpreted, Kelly's theory is capable of rationally integrating existing ACM research, together with my own. My classroom research uses a number of complementary investigative methods, some of them novel. These may be grouped under the following three headings: - interviews - lesson observations - written exercises I present an outline of a theory of teaching which is compatible with ACM research and make recommendations for future science teaching and research. N. B. To avoid an insidious (male) sexism and 'his/her' formulations which I find tedious, I shall use plural forms throughout this thesis, e.g. their, themself.

This dissertation examines college student understanding and attitudes toward biological evolution. In ethnographic work, I followed a cohort of 31 students through their required introductory biology class. In interviews, students discuss their life history with the concept - in school, at home, at church, and in their communities. For some Creationist students, confronting evolution in class has meant confronting existential issues regarding both the basis of science and the basis of faith. For other Creationist students, claims of evolution's theoretical strength are eschewed for its direct challenge to their worldview. For most students, science holds minimal interest against other values in their lives. Faculty and policy makers decry this as poor American science literacy which demands change. This work illustrates the gap between "ideal science literacy", and the everyday practices which result in half of Americans rejecting evolution as sound science.

Nos últimos anos, a presença das disciplinas científicas nos currículos escolares tem sido justificada em termos da participação democrática dos indivíduos numa sociedade cada vez mais permeada por questões nas quais a ciência e tecnologia desempenham um papel fundamental. Argumentamos, no entanto, que na pesquisa em educação em ciências as análises das relações entre os processos individuais de ensino-aprendizagem e os processos de participação na coletividade são fundamentalmente dualistas, consequência das perspectivas cognitivistas-individualistas que naturalizam os processos humanos e esperam daí derivar um modelo de aplicação do conhecimento e de atuação política. A superação deste dualismo somente é possível, neste momento histórico, a partir de uma alternativa concreta aos modelos cognitivistas-individualistas que expresse, no nível ontológico-epistemológico, a unidade entre desenvolvimento humano, produção/consumo do conhecimento e manutenção do status quo/transformação da realidade. Dedicamo-nos, então, neste trabalho, a discutir o processo de desenvolvimento humano numa perspectiva histórica, numa articulação construída a partir das complementariedades e convergências da Teoria da Atividade e da perspectiva freireana, a qual chamaremos de Atividade Potencial, que, por meio de três categorias - Problema-em-si; Problema-para-si; e Ontologia do ser mais - captam a dimensão objetiva das problemáticas humanas e a possibilidade de que tais problemas sejam apropriados, de maneira que a individualidade e a coletividade humanas sejam construídas de maneira consciente. Assim, dentro desta perspectiva teórica, a questão acerca da relevância do ensino de ciências e do papel de um conjunto específico de conhecimentos (o conhecimento científico) no desenvolvimento humano pode ser concretamente posta. / In recent years the existence of scientific disciplines in the school curricula has been justified in terms of democratic participation of individuals in a society increasingly permeated by issues in which science and technology play a pivotal role. We argue, however, that in the Research in Science Education field the relationships between individual teaching-learning processes and the participation in the collectivity are analyzed under dualistic perspectives, due to cognitive-individualistic perspectives of human development that naturalize human processes and expect to derive from that a model of knowledge application and political action. Overcoming this dualism is only possible, at this historical moment, from a concrete alternative to those cognitive-individualistic perspectives, which express, in the ontological-epistemological level, the unity between human development, production/consumption of knowledge and maintenance of the status quo/ transformation of the reality. We aim to discuss human development under a historical perspective. We build on the convergences and complementarities between Activity Theory and Freirean perspective to give rise to a set of categories (Problem-in-itself; Problem-for-itself; and Ontology of being fully human), which we call Potential Activity. Those categories are able to express the objective dimension of human problems and the possibility to appropriate such problems in order to build human individuality and the human collectivity consciously. Thus, within this theoretical perspective, the issue about the relevance of science education and the role of a specific set of knowledge (scientific one) on human development can be concretely posed.

Nos últimos anos, a presença das disciplinas científicas nos currículos escolares tem sido justificada em termos da participação democrática dos indivíduos numa sociedade cada vez mais permeada por questões nas quais a ciência e tecnologia desempenham um papel fundamental. Argumentamos, no entanto, que na pesquisa em educação em ciências as análises das relações entre os processos individuais de ensino-aprendizagem e os processos de participação na coletividade são fundamentalmente dualistas, consequência das perspectivas cognitivistas-individualistas que naturalizam os processos humanos e esperam daí derivar um modelo de aplicação do conhecimento e de atuação política. A superação deste dualismo somente é possível, neste momento histórico, a partir de uma alternativa concreta aos modelos cognitivistas-individualistas que expresse, no nível ontológico-epistemológico, a unidade entre desenvolvimento humano, produção/consumo do conhecimento e manutenção do status quo/transformação da realidade. Dedicamo-nos, então, neste trabalho, a discutir o processo de desenvolvimento humano numa perspectiva histórica, numa articulação construída a partir das complementariedades e convergências da Teoria da Atividade e da perspectiva freireana, a qual chamaremos de Atividade Potencial, que, por meio de três categorias - Problema-em-si; Problema-para-si; e Ontologia do ser mais - captam a dimensão objetiva das problemáticas humanas e a possibilidade de que tais problemas sejam apropriados, de maneira que a individualidade e a coletividade humanas sejam construídas de maneira consciente. Assim, dentro desta perspectiva teórica, a questão acerca da relevância do ensino de ciências e do papel de um conjunto específico de conhecimentos (o conhecimento científico) no desenvolvimento humano pode ser concretamente posta. / In recent years the existence of scientific disciplines in the school curricula has been justified in terms of democratic participation of individuals in a society increasingly permeated by issues in which science and technology play a pivotal role. We argue, however, that in the Research in Science Education field the relationships between individual teaching-learning processes and the participation in the collectivity are analyzed under dualistic perspectives, due to cognitive-individualistic perspectives of human development that naturalize human processes and expect to derive from that a model of knowledge application and political action. Overcoming this dualism is only possible, at this historical moment, from a concrete alternative to those cognitive-individualistic perspectives, which express, in the ontological-epistemological level, the unity between human development, production/consumption of knowledge and maintenance of the status quo/ transformation of the reality. We aim to discuss human development under a historical perspective. We build on the convergences and complementarities between Activity Theory and Freirean perspective to give rise to a set of categories (Problem-in-itself; Problem-for-itself; and Ontology of being fully human), which we call Potential Activity. Those categories are able to express the objective dimension of human problems and the possibility to appropriate such problems in order to build human individuality and the human collectivity consciously. Thus, within this theoretical perspective, the issue about the relevance of science education and the role of a specific set of knowledge (scientific one) on human development can be concretely posed.