Introduction

Abstract

Why did we write this book and why should it be of interest to our readers? ‘We’ refers to a community of scholars coming from the Nordic countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Our readers, those who we anticipate, are scholars like us with their work relating to science education but also those in teacher education and of course anyone who feels attracted and hopefully inspired by our vexations. The community of writers who contributed to this work are diverse, intersecting and questioning science education teaching, learning and teacher professional development from different angles and with different agendas. Amongst our community were a number of problematic issues regarding scientific inquiry, socio-materialism, the science lab, private enterprises in schools, outcome of teacher professional development, citizenship, norms and values that we agreed on, and that became the driving force for writing this book.