Determination of the inclusion levels of socioscientific issues in the 2018 science course curriculum and science textbooks

The aim of this study is to examine the level of inclusion of socioscientific issues in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade science curriculum achievements approved by the Ministry of National Education and published on the Educational Information Network (EBA) in the 2023-2024 academic year and the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade science textbooks in the 2018 Science Curriculum prepared by the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Turkey, Board of Education. In the study, 223 achievements in the program and a total of eight science textbooks, two for each grade level, were used as data sources. For this purpose, document analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The data were collected with the Socioscientific Issues Data Collection Table and analyzed with the content analysis method. As a result of the findings obtained, it was seen that 41 objectives out of 223 objectives in the 2018 Science Curriculum included socioscientific issues, and among these objectives, socioscientific issues were included in the 8th grade objectives the most and in the 5th grade objectives the least. It was concluded that socioscientific issues were generally included in the content, activities, chapter and end-of-unit evaluation sections of the textbooks examined, and partially included in Science, Engineering and Entrepreneurship studies.