Issues of Heterogeneity and Cultural Diversity in Science Education and Science Education Research : A Collection of Invited Papers Inspired by the 21st Symposium on Chemical and Science Education Hel

The 21st Symposium on Chemistry and Science Education continued a long tradition of more than 30 years of symposia on chemical education at the Universities of Dortmund and Bremen. The 2012 symposium was titled "Issues of Heterogeneity and Cultural Diversity in Science Education and Science Education Research".More than 100 researchers, teachers and graduate students from more than 20 different countries discussed at the TU Dortmund University the issues related to the topic of the symposium. This book of invited papers tries to collect much of the thoughts from the symposium and intends to make the results and ideas available to a broad audience.Main questions addressed in the book are:- What are the problems of science teaching connected to different areas of heterogeneity in science classes, and how to overcome them?- Which influence does a growing multi-cultural background of the students have concerning the learning of science?- What kind of problems do we have concerning, and how to deal with linguistic heterogeneity in science classes - caused by different linguistic abilities or the background of different native languages? How to teach the language of science in classes with students having different language abilities?- How to design science teaching for students with special needs or for teaching gifted children?- What do examples of good practice from different countries suggest for change in the practice of science teaching related to the issues of heterogeneity and cultural diversity?diversity?Within this book, more than 30 contributions of authors from 19 different countries discuss the different dimensions of the above mentioned issues. The papers discuss about potential orientations, pedagogies and strategies of contemporary science education in the foreground of growing heterogeneity and cultural diversity in science classrooms worldwide. It also is reflected, which contribution science education research has made and should make to overcome the described challenges.