Reasoning Together in Science Education: Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy as a Socio-Cognitive-Emotional Controversy

Abstract

Argumentative skills are targeted in science education both as part of scientific enculturation (e.g. Von Aufschnaiter et al., 2008) and to help citizens make decisions in our contemporaneous societies driven by technoscience (Coulon, Lascoumes, Barthe, 2001). What matters is to foster high-quality argumentation about socioscientific controversies about which various rational, though contradictory, viewpoints emerge, based on distinct hierarchization of priorities (Polo, 2023). This chapter propose a model to apprehend such issues taking into account their triple, socio-cognitive-emotional nature. The case of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in France in 2021-2022 is then elaborated to illustrate the practical significance of such model. Thanks to an education-focused analysis of the public debate, I specify principles of instructional design aiming at exploring socioscientific controversies.