Research has shown the importance of dealing with real-life issues and of enabling student encounters with complexity in chemistry education in order to increase student participation. Therefore, this study aims to analyse how complexity evolves in students' discussions and how this complexity relates to aspects of tentativeness in chemistry. In…

The aim of this article is to propose a didactical approach to establish appropriate relations between different kinds of chemical knowledge and explanations at the macro and the submicro level. Incorrectly moving between these two levels is regarded as the cause of many misconceptions in school chemistry, and several theoretical frameworks have…

We propose explicit and implicit approaches for the teaching of acid-base chemistry based on research into the history and nature of science (NoS). To support these instructional proposals, we identify four rationales for students to understand acid-base processes: daily life, socio-scientific, curriculum, and history of science. The extensive…

The importance of learning "chemical ways of thinking" is widely recognized. Various frameworks have been developed to address the essence of chemistry and chemical thinking. However, very few studies have focused on how chemical ways of thinking can be defined. To elaborate chemical ways of thinking, this paper draws on scientific…

This paper concerns "Bildung"-oriented chemistry education, based on a reflective and critical discourse of chemistry. It is contrasted with the dominant type of chemistry education, based on the mainstream discourse of chemistry. "Bildung"-oriented chemistry education includes not only content knowledge in chemistry, but also…

In learning chemistry at the entry level, many learners labor under misconceptions about the subject matter that are so fundamental that they are typically never addressed. A fundamental misconception in chemistry appears to arise from an adding of existing phenomenal concepts to newly-acquired chemical concepts, so that beginning learners think…

Since at least the eighteenth century scientific knowledge (then natural philosophy) was produced in groups of experts and specialists and was transmitted in schools, where, future experts and specialists were trained. The design of teaching has always been a complex process particularly in recent years when educational aims (for example, teaching…

Assuming that textbooks give literary expression to cultural and ideological values of a nation or group, we propose the analysis of chemistry textbooks used in Brazilian universities throughout the twentieth century. We analyzed iconographic and textual aspects of 31 textbooks which had significant diffusion in the context of Brazilian…

Eight chemistry textbooks written from 1758 to 1891 have been analyzed for the way they present the chemistry of the oxides of tin. This analysis gives insight into the foundation of a number of chemical ideas such as nomenclature and composition used in modern chemistry. Four major preparation techniques for the production of tin oxides emerge…

History and philosophy of science have been widely promoted in science teacher education for several decades. However the application of themes from philosophy of science in science teacher education has been rather broad and not particular relative to the domain-specific features of the science in question. The purpose of this paper is to…

The notion of incommensurability has provided a rationality criterion for the development of scientific theories, as well as some insight into theories developed by students while learning science. However, the relationship between the multiple models held by students and incommensurability requires further discussion. We present the results of…

This paper is a study of textbooks in chemical technology in Sweden during the industrialisation in the 19th century. In this period, teaching in technological education in general became more and more founded on science. However, there existed very few textbooks in chemical technology, and it is argued that the reason was that the essentials of…

The implications of history and philosophy of chemistry are explored in the context of chemical models. Models and modeling provide the context through which epistemological aspects of chemistry can be promoted. In this work, the development of ideas and models about acids and bases (with emphasis on the Arrhenius, the Bronsted-Lowry, and the…