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Scientific and Technological Literacy for Citizenship: What can we learn from the research and other evidence ? 
Edgar ,
Professor of Science Education Policy,
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Introduction
 
The need to promote a munity of scientifically and technologically literate citizens was regarded as urgent by the World  Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien in 1990. The UNESCO Project 2000+, committed to developing appropriate structures and activities to foster scientific and technological literacy for all, in all the countries of the world, was  a direct response to this need identified at the earlier World Conference. The various programmes, proposals and initiatives concerned with scientific and technological literacy in many different countries are, therefore, part of a global movement, although they are not, of course, necessarily associated directly with the UNESCO initiative. Some programmes, such as Project 2061 in the USA, involve large-scale and long-term curriculum development. Others, as in the science and ponents of the national curriculum in England and Wales or in New Zealand, attempt to promote the foundations of scientific and technological literacy at school level by statutory means. 
Several features stand out from any scrutiny of  developments thus far. Since they frame much of the rest of this paper, it is convenient to identify them at this point. The first is that scientific and technological literacy are slogans and not prescriptions for action. The word slogan is said to derive from two Gaelic words sluagh and gairm, meaning ‘army’ and ‘cry’ respectively. Not surprisingly, therefore, slogans are still invoked as something of a rallying cry for key ideas, serving as a convenient means of generating political, educational, social or financial support without the inconvenience of explaining the meaning of the terms involved. It is this imprecision and ambiguity of slogans which  al