Science Education as a Safeguard for Democracy: A Combined Process/Spiral Model for PISA-Aligned Curricula

In contemporary STEM-oriented societies, science education plays a critical role in democratic citizenship. Scientific research and technological innovation have generated an understanding of the world that diverges from common sense. Although these advances have significantly enhanced the quality of life, they have also fostered fear and distrust among laypeople who, lacking comprehension of how science produces reliable knowledge, often rely on intuitive but incorrect beliefs. Therefore, educational researchers must explore effective methods for teaching and learning science to prevent the emergence of irrational and anti-scientific attitudes. Despite the global adoption of the PISA 2025 framework as a benchmark, a substantial gap remains between these international standards and actual classroom practices, primarily due to "epistemological naivety" among teachers who do not adopt a practice-based approach to science education. To bridge this gap, the work proposes a "combined process/spiral curriculum model" that directly accounts for the learning-level constraints inherent in the development of PISA competencies, integrating Bateson’s theory of learning with the curricular insights of Bruner and Stenhouse. However, while this combined model provides the structural framework for PISA alignment, its effective implementation requires training teachers to become accustomed to employing differentiated principles of procedure—corrective and enabling for primary educators, analytical and meta-cognitive for secondary educators—to convert PISA commitments into effective classroom practice.