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In this article, we study third-year university students' reasoning about three controversial socio-scientific issues from the viewpoint of education for sustainable development: local issues (the reintroduction of bears in the Pyrenees in France, wolves in the Mercantour) and a global one (global warming). We used the theoretical frameworks of social representations and of socio-scientific reasoning. Students' reasoning varies according to the issues, in particular because of their emotional proximity with the issues and their socio-cultural origin. About this kind of issues, it seems pertinent to integrate into the operations of socio-scientific reasoning not only the consideration of values, but also the analysis of the modes of governance and the place given to politics.Résumé exécutif Dans ce travail, nous avons comparé le raisonnement d'étudiants en licence sur trois Questions Socio-Scientifiques controversées dans le cadre de l'Education au Développement Durable: deux questions locales (la réintroduction de l'ours dans les Pyrénées et la présence du loup dans le Mercantour) et une question globale (le réchauffement climatique). Nous nous sommes appuyés sur le cadre théorique des représentations sociales et du raisonnement socio-scientifique.Sadler, Barab & Scott (2006) ont introduit la notion de raisonnement socioscientifique. Ces auteurs ont élaboré de façon théorique le raisonnement socio-scientifique à partir de quatre opérations souhaitables dans l'analyse des QSS: (a) l'analyse de la complexité inhérente à la question étudiée, (b) l'examen de la question à partir de différents points de vue, (c) la perception que la question doit être soumise à des recherches complémentaires sur le plan scientifique mais aussi social et (d) l'expression de scepticisme vis-à-vis d'informations qui peuvent être biaisées.C'est à Moscovici (1961Moscovici ( , 1976 qu'on doit la réapparition du concept de représentation sociale. La représentation sociale est un processus à la charnière du social, de l'affectif et du cognitif qui forme un cadre interprétatif. C'est aussi un produit, car elle est constituée de croyances et d'opinions organisées autour d'une signification centrale et par rapport à un objet

ABSTRACT:Within the increasing body of research that examines students' reasoning on socioscientific issues, we consider in particular student reasoning concerning acute, open-ended questions that bring out the complexities and uncertainties embedded in illstructured problems. In this paper, we propose a socioscientific sustainability reasoning (S 3 R) model to analyze students' reasoning exchanges on environmental socially acute questions (ESAQs). The paper describes the development of an epistemological analysis of how sustainability perspectives can be integrated into socioscientific reasoning, which emphasizes the need for S 3 R to be both grounded in context and collective. We argue the complexity of ESAQs requires a consideration of multiple dimensions that form the basis of our S 3 R analysis model: problematization, interactions, knowledge, uncertainties, values, and governance. For each dimension, in the model we have identified indicators of four levels of complexity. We investigated the usefulness of the model in identifying improvements in reasoning that flow from cross-national web-based exchanges between groups of French and Australian students, concerning a local and a global ESAQ. The S 3 R model successfully captured the nature of reasoning about socioscientific sustainability issues, with the collective negotiation of multiple forms of knowledge as a key characteristic

Education for Sustainability has become an institutional requirement in many countries. It takes many forms that can integrate the teaching of environmental Socioscientific Issues (SSIs). In this context, we present the French notion of Socially Acute Questions (SAQs). We develop a theoretical frame to analyse educational configurations applied to the teaching of SAQs within the perspective of sustainability. This frame is built with a reference to a matrix integrating attributes of knowledge (universal, plural, engaged or contextualised), teachers' epistemological postures (scientism, utilitarianism, skepticsm or relativism) and various didactic strategies (doctrinal, problematizing, critical or pragmatic). To illustrate this frame, three situations of teaching-learning are compared.

Based on the comments by Lopez-Facal and Jiménez-Aleixandre, we consider that the cultural identities within Europe interfere with the question of the re-introduction of the Slovenian bear, generating a kind of ''discrimination.'' When the SAQs under debate run against the students' systems of value, it seems that the closer the connection between the SAQs (socially acute questions) and the territorial and cultural identity, the more deeply the associated systems of values are affected; and the more the evidence is denied, the weaker the socio-scientific reasoning becomes. This result shows the importance of attempting to get the students to clarify the values underlying their socio-scientific reasoning. As Sadler observed, there was no transfer of socio-scientific reasoning on the three questions considered; each SAQ, as they are deeply related to social representations and identity, generated a specific line of reasoning balancing more or less each operation. Among various methods of teaching SAQs-problematizing, genetic, doctrinal and praxeological methods--socioscientific reasoning may be a complex activity of problematization fostering the development of critical thinking. Confronted with the refusal to analyse the evidence in the case of the bear, and because of the nature of SAQs, we explore the notion of tangible proof. We think it relevant to study, together with the students, the processes of investigation used by the actors to establish or disestablish tangible proof on SAQs by analysing the intermediary states of the systems of proof, and possibly the ''weak signals'' which result in calling for the implementation of the precautionary principle.

This chapter examines some dimensions of argumentation in socio-scientific contexts from a perspective seeking to develop students' understanding of the interdependence between science and society. The notion of socio-scientific issues as social dilemmas rooted in scientific domains and the notion of "socially acute questions" are discussed in the first section. The goal of improving students' argumentation skills on socio-scientific issues poses particular challenges, which are examined in the second section. In the third section, the influence of different strategies on students' argumentation about socio-scientific issues is traced. Organising debates on these issues raises many difficulties for teachers for example the management of uncertainty and controversies. The influence of teachers' cultural and disciplinary identity and the question of neutrality are the focus of the fourth section.

Scientific expertise and outcomes often give rise to controversy. An educational response that equips students to take part in such discussions is the teaching of socially acute questions (SAQs). With SAQs, the understanding of uncertainty, risk and how knowledge is developed is central. This study explores the way in which students from different disciplines and different continents are brought together via a digital platform to explore SAQs about environmental issues (a green algae outbreak linked to release of fertilisers along the coast of Brittany; the construction of a desalination plant near Melbourne to produce freshwater; and changes in meat consumption on a global scale, with regard to population projections in 2050). We have developed frameworks for looking at the quality of the collective reasoning and at the nature of students' interactions, so that we can analyse the organisation of the learning communities and the building of collegial expertise. The results show that interdisciplinary discussions, especially on an international scale, foster the understanding of complex situations. In this paper, we discuss the modalities of one didactic scenario to enhance critical thinking and collaborative work, and to provide space for learners to support argumentation.

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