Two ongoing research projects carried out by Halmstad University in cooperation with University of York and by University of Innsbruck aim to understand how science teachers approach politics in the classroom and how pre-service science teachers understand critical thinking. We argue that political participation and critical thinking needs to be at the heart of Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) pedagogy to make effective change and find solutions to urgent social issues in a democracy. Critical thinking is crucial for negotiating socially urgent issues, such as climate change and pandemics, and debunking misinformation (e.g., Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig 2022) and, thus, for civic education (e.g., ten Dam & Volman 2004; Glaser 1985; Oulton et al. 2004). Teachers need to create possibilities for young people to engage in actions to handle urgent societal challenges, that is political participation (Ekman & Amnå 2012). Science teachers might be reluctant to address politics and critical thinking both when it comes to prescribing and describing teaching content. However, especially in the context of S|E|H, neither science and school science nor critical thinking is independent of politics. Both S|E|H contents and critical thinking include descriptive and normative aspects and relate to conflict of interests and values. Therefore, teachers need to handle critical thinking, politics and political participation in a thoughtful way. The aim of the round table is to discuss future research about teaching critical thinking and politics in the science classroom and furthermore to consider theoretical and normative aspects - points of departure, conclusions and recommendations - in such research. First, the chairs will provide a short input. Then, participants discuss in small groups: 1) What kind of empirical research is needed? 2) How do we as researchers handle theoretical and normative aspects in research? Finally, all participants of the round table share their ideas.