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Navigating Alarming Media Messages About Nutrition and Health: How Students Engage in Critical Examination of Science in News Media
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6007-1658
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Science Education.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7679-1628
Number of Authors: 32020 (English)In: Science & Education, ISSN 0926-7220, E-ISSN 1573-1901, Vol. 29, no 1, p. 75-100Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This study focuses the emerging need for young people to critically respond to alarming messages in contemporary media highlighting the potential benefits or harms of certain foods. Besides being technical, advancements in the field of nutrition reported in media are often of tentative and speculative character, primarily selected and constructed on the basis of their news value rather than as representing established knowledge. The study aims to study students' capabilities to navigate and critically respond to controversial media messages about health and nutrition in the context of science education. Our theoretical point of departure is in the concept an examined life in the critical reflection tradition of Socrates and the Stoics. We analyze how groups of upper secondary science class students engage in critical examination of a controversial message about cow's milk encountered through Swedish public service news media on the Internet. The results illuminate that even when controversial findings are produced by a reputed university and communicated through independent media, students are capable of discerning the need to scrutinize such findings and are capable of performing such critical examination drawing on experiences of scientific investigations. Students' openness to question authoritative voices in society and to illuminate the new findings on milk from multiple perspectives reflects how an examined life may be enacted in the context of science education. Inviting students to participate in related activities shows promise for enabling a critical examination of themselves and others in ways deemed important for democratic citizenship.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. Vol. 29, no 1, p. 75-100
Keywords [en]
Critical examination, Nutrition, Health, News media, Science education, An examined life
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-180458DOI: 10.1007/s11191-019-00099-1ISI: 000517064500002OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-180458DiVA, id: diva2:1423652
Available from: 2020-04-15 Created: 2020-04-15 Last updated: 2022-03-23Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Cultivating humanity in science education: A capabilities approach to students' critical examination of public issues in science education
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Cultivating humanity in science education: A capabilities approach to students' critical examination of public issues in science education
2020 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This dissertation is about science education as an education for citizenship with a particular focus on the potential of inviting students to participate in critical examination of public issues in the media. Through digital media, a vast amount of health-related information is readily available to the public. People who turn to the Internet in search of health information of any kind, will come across a vast array of voices, information and contradictory claims. The rationale of this dissertation is the recognised challenges for citizens to stay critical when public issues that relate to health and nutrition are examined on the Internet. The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to expanding and nuancing the understanding of students’ critical examination of public issues in science education by drawing on a capabilities approach. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s version of the capabilities approach and notion of ‘world citizenship’ is situated in science education and used for analysing students’ participation in critical examination of public issues relating to health. In addition, sociocultural perspectives are drawn upon to conceptualise learning. The dissertation builds on two different research projects, both conducted as design-based research collaborations with upper secondary school science teachers and their students. The data are comprised of audio and video recordings of student group discussions as they search for and critically examine health-related information on the Internet, and video recordings and field notes from the teachers’ whole-class introductions to the activities. Data have been analysed using qualitative content analysis, also drawing on the work of Nussbaum. The findings in this dissertation are presented in four papers. Paper I reports how the introduction of an evaluation tool afforded and constrained students’ critical examination of health issues on the Internet, and how this process can be fruitfully analysed by taking a capabilities approach. The findings show how use of the evaluation tool caused students to privilege scientific information, leaving lived experiences of health issues and students’ own purposes of the information-searching unexamined. Paper II focuses students’ critical examination of controversial and emerging science reported in news media. The findings illuminate how students’ encounters with a controversial nutrition study on the Internet triggered epistemological work — the examination of scientific knowledge as embedded in social, cultural and historical practices. Paper III focuses students’ critical examination of a science-laden public issue concerning milk consumption. The findings show how the students examine their own and societal moral underpinnings of consuming milk, and how the production and consumption of milk affect people's lives and the places we live. In these conversations on milk, the students also imagine different sustainable futures. Paper IV proposes a heuristic for ethical reflection on participatory science education research, highlighting reflective questions in relation to the dimensions of ontology, epistemology and methodology. It is intended to extend standard ethical reflection in education research by taking hierarchies, roles, values, risks, objectives and accountability into account. Overall, the results reported in this dissertation emphasise that students’ critical examination of public issues in the media cannot be limited to source critique that aims to sift out ‘facts’ and uncontested science. This dissertation illuminates the potentiality of science education for citizenship in providing students with opportunities to participate in critical examination of themselves and society in encounters with issues of public concern.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: The Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Stockholm University, 2020. p. 122
Keywords
science education, critical examination, public issues, Martha Nussbaum, the capabilities approach, ‘world citizenship’, narrative imagination, research ethics, participatory research
National Category
Educational Sciences
Research subject
Science Education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-184166 (URN)978-91-7911-260-8 (ISBN)978-91-7911-261-5 (ISBN)
Public defence
2020-10-02, Vivi Täckholmsalen (Q-salen) NPQ-huset, Svante Arrhenius väg 20, digitally via conference (Zoom), public link https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/64892637903, Stockholm, 13:00 (Swedish)
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Available from: 2020-09-09 Created: 2020-08-16 Last updated: 2022-02-26Bibliographically approved

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