A Rationale for Using Personal Relevance as a Science Curriculum Focus in Schools.

Reviews evidence in support of the primacy of the personal relevance orientation in science education. Provides a quick review of four other orientations and their shortcomings for curriculum planning. Orientation reviews focus on: (1) the development of cognitive processes; (2) social adaptation and reconstruction; (3) academic rationalism; and (4) the curriculum conceived as technology. (RT)