SSI as An Educational Innovation in Spain: Easier Said Than Done

As a researcher, I note with sadness and, why not, also with self-criticism, the manifest gap between theory and practice of Socioscientific Issues education, where, despite evidence of its potential to improve learning, its practical application remains marginal. This chapter focuses on Spain as an example of this problematic, and attempts to bridge this gap by collecting, synthesizing and organizing recent research and practice of SSI education. More specifically, the evidence is organized in three topics, i.e. Students dealing with SSI that are relevant at the moment of speaking, SSI as a means to achieve scientific literacy in science education, and Maintaining and sustaining the practice of SSI education. In this way, the chapter gives visibility to journal articles, conference proceedings, books and other sources that may be out of reach of those who can contribute to reducing this gap, such as policy makers and teacher education providers. Moreover, these topics emerge from the information sources, thus also providing a ground for conceptual discussion over the applications of SSI in formal education in this or similar contexts, as well as ground for new research ideas.