ORIGINAL PAPER Sociopolitical development of private school children mobilising for disadvantaged others Darren Hoeg • Nathalie Lemelin • John Lawrence Bencze Received: 23 September 2013 / Accepted: 21 May 2014 / Published online: 7 August 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract A contemporary focus on democratic decision-making has occurred in school science through curricular developments such as socioscientific issues (SSIs) and Science, Technology, Society and Environment (STSE), creates opportunities for inclusion of activist education. However, it appears these components are often taught, if at all, as simply add-on content. Private schools represent a domain of education that has received relatively little attention in research literature regarding sociopolitical activism for addressing SSIs. In this study, we aimed to document the extent to which private school students were able to implement socioscientific activism and to map their socio-political development in the context of a project on child labour. Data collected from student projects and interviews indicate, in many cases, dramatic development of socially critical views and activist orientations that took place over time, and in various steps. A discussion of the factors enabling students’ activist development, such as the school culture, the curriculum, and their teacher, are discussed. Keywords Sociopolitical development Á Private schools Á Activism Á Socioscientific issues It may now be an auspicious time to develop school science with an activist focus. The need for activism and citizen engagement in social issues related to practices and products of science and technology, termed socioscientific issues (SSI’s) by many scholars (e.g., Zeidler, Sadler, Simmons and Howe 2005), appears to have never been so dire. Socio- scientific issues such as climate change and loss of bio-diversity due to human settlement Lead Editor: Aik Ling Tan D. Hoeg (&) Á N. Lemelin Á J. L. Bencze Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada e-mail: darren.hoeg@utoronto.ca 123 Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2015) 10:1155–1174 DOI 10.1007/s11422-014-9611-2