Co-addressing Wicked Problems through Science Education and Culture: Insights from Ukraine, Estonia, Turkey, and Bangladesh

In dealing with wicked problems, such as pandemics, war, economic inflation, refugee influx, and natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods, culture is seen as playing a strong role in determining peoples’ responses. While school science education seeks to promote an awareness of, and even preparedness towards, dealing with wicked problems, the isolation of school science from culture can result in promoting an image of science within students as unaccounted for and unaffected by cultural experiences. In reducing this gap between science education and culture, this study seeks to identify science teacher perceptions towards a combined role to be played by both science education and culture in co-addressing wicked problems. In so doing, this qualitative study takes into consideration four wicked problems – the current war in Ukraine, the recent earthquake in Turkey, a refugee influx into Estonia, and the reoccurring floods in Bangladesh. Through semi-structured interviews with five volunteer science teachers from each country, the study explores science teacher perceptions towards the roles played by culture and science education separately, and possible ways to combine these so as to promote a culturally relevant, responsive and adaptive science education orientation. The findings of the study suggest ways to promote awareness, preparedness and enhance emotional acceptance through both science education and cultural practices. The significance of this study lies in the multicultural nature of the research, seen as allowing the researchers to gain multicultural perspective from science teachers with first-hand experience related to wicked problems.