IHPST THIRTEENTH BIENNIAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE RIO DE JANEIRO JULY 22-25, 2015 2015 Controversial aspects of the construct NOS in the Ibero-American Science Education journals: a literature review Alexandre Bagdonas Evandro Rozentalski Flávia Polati Graduate Program “Interunidades em Ensino de Ciências", Universidade de São Paulo Brasil alebagdonas@gmail.com rozentalski@usp.br flaviapolati@gmail.com Abstract Since the beginning of this decade, “the consensual view” of the Nature of Science (NOS), often associated to lists of tenets presented by Norman Lederman and his research group, has been criticized by philosophers of science, historians of science and science educators. These discussions lead to the acknowledgment of controversial aspects about NOS in science education and the multifaceted, tentative and complex nature of the construct. Thus, our research aims to analyze, first of all, whether the research published in the last 20 years by the Ibero-American Science Education journals recognizes the controversial aspects of NOS. After, we evaluate how they are discussed. Our survey indicates that 43% of Ibero- American NOS research acknowledge that there is no consensus among philosophers, historians and sociologists of science about NOS. However, they adopted a pedagogical consensus based on the possibility of establishing a consensus. There are signs of different emphases of NOS by the Ibero-American community: Brazilian authors tend to focus on epistemic aspects; other Ibero-American authors tend to focus on sociological aspects. In our view, the NOS should be problematized so we can be aware of its controversial aspects, limitations and implications. Keywords: nature of science (NOS); the consensual view; controversial aspects; literature review; Ibero-American. Introduction In recent years, “the consensual view” of Nature of Science (NOS) in Science Education has been criticized by several authors. These criticisms are addressed to two main points: which aspects of NOS discussions in Philosophy of Science are selected in order to establish the “consensual view” of NOS and, especially, the implications of these choices for science education. Some authors point out that the lack of consensus among philosophers of science leads to difficulties in supporting the existence of a consensual view of NOS in Science Education. Besides, they remark that the selection of some of the aspects of NOS leads to rigid criteria of demarcation between science and non-science and yet, transmits a single view of Science. Full Paper Template