A Moral Inquiry into Epistemic Insight through Socioscientific Issues: A Turkish Perspective

In this chapter a literature synthesis about socioscientific issues (SSI) based research in Turkish context is given in several aspects. The first part of the chapter includes the synthesis of the SSI based research trend in Türkiye. The synthesis highlighted that most of the SSI research supported the idea that science teaching is the focal point to raise functional scientific literacy by using scientific knowledge to generate evidence-based reasoning and informed decision about SSI. Also, in terms of pedagogical approach, argumentation, and debate has been preferred widely to engage students in science learning through SSI based teaching. The second part addresses how scientific inquiry and moral inquiry have been conceptualized and compared in light of the SSI research conducted in the Turkish context. The synthesis mainly includes how the current Turkish SSI literature on epistemic insights (moral reasoning, character education, and socioscientific reasoning) through SSI were investigated by Turkish scholars. In the last part of the chapter, the state of SSI research in Türkiye in terms of research, practice, and policy were criticized and how these dimensions can be advocated through the synthesis given in the first and second parts.