It is a subject that goes by many different names, plain or fancy: Social Studies in Science; Science of Science; Science and Society; Social Responsibility in Science; Science Theory; Science Policy Studies; Science in a Social Context; Liberal Studies in Science; Social Relations of Science and Technology; History/Philosophy/Sociology of Science/ Technology/Knowledge; etc. Let us call it, cryptically, STS, short for Science, Technology, and Society.

The diversity of names is characteristic, for it is highly diversified in content and significance. Some people would limit it to philosophical exercises within the groves of academia; others would pursue it politically into the industrial market place, the courts of justice and the councils of government. For some it is an area for dispassionate analysis; for others it is a cause for concern.

STS themes permeate the political, economic and cultural issues of our times. The whole subject is now a major factor in the equations of civilized life. Considered thus broadly, it has escaped the possibility of encapsulation in a single work.

But STS education – that is, organized instruction on various aspects of this general subject – is a much more specific topic. In the last decade or so, various courses of study have been tried out, with various objectives, and varying degrees of success, on a wide variety of students in secondary schools, universities, polytechnics and other institutions of higher education. This development is, of course, itself a consequence of the general interest in STS themes in the political and cultural sphere, but manifests itself much more concretely, in the form of teaching curricula, lecture notes, textbooks and examination syllabuses.