What is ‘powerful knowledge’ in school biology?

Abstract

Powerful knowledge refers to specialised knowledge that provides generalisations, claims to be universal and provides a basis for making judgements. It originates from an academic discipline or disciplines, which is transformed into a school curriculum (Muller and Young 2019). Biology is a powerful discipline because it links related facts into concepts, which can themselves be linked into broader concepts and theories. It has transformative power because students can fit new observations into existing concepts, make conceptual connections, gain insights into their observations and generate ideas (Muller and Young 2019). Bildung-centred Didaktik expands the concept of powerful knowledge from ‘knowledge for its own end’ to ‘knowledge for developing human powers’. It foregrounds the educational potential of school subjects to form ‘autonomous and responsible individuals who can thrive and flourish in the present and future world’ (Deng 2022, 14). Geography leads the way in structuring and enacting a school curriculum for powerful knowledge (Maude 2016; Larsen and Solem 2022). Content selection and its sequencing to form a school subject are crucial to achieving progress in powerful knowledge (Muller and Young 2019; Deng 2022). This editorial aims to initiate discussion about what counts as ‘powerful knowledge’ in biology. There is general consensus that biology curriculum should address knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, with a view to promoting responsible decision-making about one’s own and environmental health (Harlen et al. 2015). It should include how biological processes can be used to benefit humans without harming the environment. There is also general consensus about the broad components of biology: cell biology, heredity, evolution, diversity, ecology, animal structure and function, and plant structure and function (Starr, Evers, and Starr 2016). The question is: how can we structure the components so that they build from facts through generalising concepts to broader concepts and theories? A group of scientists and science education experts identified four ‘big ideas’ in disciplinary biology towards which students should progress from ages 5 to 17. They then sequenced relevant content to suit the age and stage of schooling (Harlen et al. 2015). Their big ideas are: