Inquiry-Based Approaches in Two Generations of Science Reference Frameworks in French-Speaking Belgium: A Curricular Analysis

In French-speaking Belgium, new science curricula are being introduced for pupils aged 12 to 15 and will gradually be implemented in classrooms until 2028. At a time when the reference frameworks for the rest of the compulsory curriculum (ages 16 to 18) are being rebuilt, we wanted to ascertain—via qualitative and textometric analyses—the importance of inquiry-based approaches in the new common core reference framework (ages 12 to 15), as well as in the current upper secondary framework (ages 16 to 18) it is being developed to replace. More broadly, we examine and compare the ways in which didactic research findings on these approaches, and the major epistemological orientations underlying them, are operationalised; in this way, we draw up some guidelines for rewriting upper secondary science reference frameworks. Our analysis shows that the common core reference framework is much more explicit about epistemological orientations and inquiry-based approaches than that for upper secondary, although it does not include research in science didactics.