Resumen de Inquiry in Science Education: International Perspectives

Mansoor Niaz, Hsiao-Lin Tuan, Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Richard Duschl, Rachel Mamlok-Naaman, David Treagust, Norman G. Lederman, Saouma Boujaoude, Avi Hofstein

• This paper set emerged from an international symposium that aimed to shedlight on issues associated with the enactment of inquiry both as means (i.e., inquiry as an in-structional approach) and as ends (i.e., inquiry as a learning outcome) in precollege scienceclassrooms. The symposium contributors were charged with providing perspectives from their countries on the following major themes: (a) philosophical and practical conceptionsof inquiry in the science curriculum; (b) images of the enactment of inquiry in the curricu-lum, curricular materials, classroom instruction, and assessment practices; and (c) factorsand conditions, internal and external to the educational setting, which facilitate or impedeinquiry-based science education. Another major theme that emerged from the symposiumwas related to the very conceptions of inquiry teaching. The individual contributions andsynthesizing commentaries demonstrate that despite their situatedness and diversity, manythemes and issues cut across the represented locales, and serve to show the significance andpotential fruitfulness of any discourse regarding inquiry in science education that this paperset might, and we hope will, trigger in the near future.