science, politics and media in the perspective centered on enlightenment: alan irwin's sociology in dialogue with science education

This work intends to discuss the approach of socio-scientific controversies in the classroom from the perspective centered on enlightenment. To that end, the sociology of Alan Irwin was presented, and using principles of Bakhtin's philosophy, it was tried to elucidate the senses conferred by teacher and students to circulating controversies on global warming in sequence of ten meetings, especially with respect to the relation between science, politics and the media. It was observed perplexity and discomfort with the non-epistemic factors of controversies, science being treated as synonymous with true, univocal and objective knowledge, often in opposition to politics and the media, treated as inclined to masking reality or seeking power. There was a spectrum of reactions and distinct levels of consciousness on the part of the students, whether about the complexity of socio-scientific controversies, about the perception of themselves or about the epistemic scope of the judgments of reality. The coexistence of the democratic argument for the teaching of science for all with such perspective criticized by Irwin is evaluated, as well as greater efforts are recommended for the teaching-learning of the nature of science, science-politic-media relations and skepticism as possible competence to be educated.