Une vision socialisée des sciences au service d'une éducation relative à l'environnement socioconstructiviste

Abstract

Rather than rooting environmental education in a traditional science teaching, thus giving the illusion of an objective knowledge of nature and of the possibility of technological solutions to so called environmental problems, the author proposes a socioconstructivist environmental education. Research in science education show indeed that teachers and students from our school system have integrated a representation of sciences as unquestionable and ideologically neutral fields of knowledge. The challenge of environmental education is to help them to get a more complex representation of sciences, and of the environment, by integrating sociopolitical and ethical considerations during their reflexion and by sensitizing them to the fact that in scientific knowledge there is always uncertainty. It is thus important to clarify the students' social representations about the nature of scientific knowledge. This analysis will help to design pedagogical strategies with emancipatory goals, inspired from research in the field of sociology of science. There is a need to counter the western overvaluing of sciences and to open a reflexive debate between those who benefit from the expert status in our societies and those who do not have acces to such a privilege.