In a further attempt at delineation, Zeidler, Walker, Ackett, and Simmons (2002) claimed that the SSI approach has much broader scope, in that it “subsumes all that STS has to offer, while also considering the ethical dimensions of science, the moral reasoning of the child, and the emotional development of the student” (p. 344). Though this may or may not be true, I do not believe that current conceptions of STSE or SSI-oriented science education go far enough. My inclination is toward a much more radical, politicized form of SSI-oriented teaching and learning in which students not only address complex and often controversial SSI, and formulate their own position concerning them, but also prepare for, and engage in, sociopolitical actions that they believe will make a difference.
The shift in curriculum perspective I am advocating can be interpreted in terms of Habermas's (1971) theory of knowledge and human interests. Technical rationality and the goal of self-interest are apparent in the economic rationalist goals of efficiency and production and in the desire to control and exploit the environment in pursuit of short-term economic gains (a goal implicit, and sometimes explicit, in many of the curriculum documents produced by the Ontario Ministry of Education in recent years); interpretive or hermeneutic rationality is apparent in the desire to gain a clearer understanding of the multitude of competing human interests from the perspectives of the various actors and, thereby, a better understanding of the underlying causes of social disadvantage and environmental degradation (the goal of some STSE curricula); critical rationality is apparent in the emancipatory goal of self-critical reflective knowledge, free from the ideologically oriented interests of particular individuals and groups, that can form the basis for the kind of social action that reforms society and its practices (the goal of the curriculum I am proposing).