Stereotypes about scientists over time among US adults: 1983 and 2001

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Carol Losh
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Science Career ◽  
Images Of Scientists ◽  
The Us ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Educational Variables ◽  
Representative Samples

Prior research demonstrates that students and some teachers often depict scientists as socially inept workaholic males; however, scholars rarely examine representative samples of adults. How the US general public stereotypes scientists may influence accepting science expertise because its practitioners can appear so eccentric. By expressing negative stereotypes, “typical adults” also can discourage youthful interests in science. This study analyzes general public interview data using identical questions from the 1983 and 2001 National Science Foundation Surveys of Public Understanding of Science and Technology, probability samples of 3219 adults. Despite many positive changes over nearly 20 years, and strong approval of a child’s potential science career, sizable minorities of adults continued to negatively stereotype scientists. Women were more positive than men but had considered a science career less often. Images of scientists also were affected by age, educational variables, parental status, and a religiosity measure.

Understanding understanding: a model for the public learning of radioactivity

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 267-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Alsop
Keyword(s):  
Informal Learning ◽  
Background Radiation ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Change Model ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Conceptual Change Model

While much of the work in the public understanding of science has focused on the public's appreciation of science and their familiarity with key scientific concepts, understanding the processes involved in learning science has largely been ignored. This article documents a study of how particular members of the public learn about radiation and radioactivity, and proposes a model to describe their learning—the Informal Conceptual Change Model [ICCM]. ICCM is a multidimensional framework that incorporates three theoretical dimensions—the cognitive, conative, and affective. The paper documents each of these dimensions, and then illustrates the model by drawing upon data collected in a case study. The emphasis of the analysis is on understanding how the members of the public living in an area with high levels of background radiation learn about the science of this potential health threat. The summarizing comments examine the need for a greater awareness of the complexities of informal learning.

The roles of rhetoric in the public understanding of science

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Analysis ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Contextual Model ◽  
Deficit Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Science Rhetoric ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Social Scientific

In the public understanding of science, rhetoric has two distinct roles: it is both a theory capable of analysing public understanding and an activity capable of creating it. In its analytical role, rhetoric reveals two dominant models of public understanding: the deficit model and the contextual model. In the deficit model, rhetoric acts in the minor role of creating public understanding by accommodating the facts and methods of science to public needs and limitations. In the contextual model, rhetoric and rhetorical analysis play major roles. Rhetorical analysis provides an independent source of evidence to secure social scientific claims; in addition, it supplies the grounds for a rhetoric of reconstruction, one that reconstitutes the fact and facts of science in the public interest.

scholarly journals Training in Astronomy

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 910-911
Author(s):  
M. Gerbaldi
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Primary Science ◽  
University Colleges ◽  
University Level ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
The University

Astronomy offers a unique opportunity for promoting the science teaching in its present crisis. Astronomy can be introduced at various levels and become the medium by which both primary science education and public understanding of science are stimulated.At the University level, astronomy can be introduced in the curricula of university colleges and be a subject for M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees. Astronomy, can give students the opportunity to work scientifically from observations and known physical laws in order to derive knowledge in another field of science. Astronomy can be taught with less formalism and more experimentation, giving students a feel for the link between a phenomenon and its theoretical representation, and how and why a given observation can be represented by different theoretical models.

Is the Great Barrier Reef dead? Satire, death and environmental communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2110558
Author(s):  
Kerrie Foxwell-Norton ◽  
Claire Konkes
Keyword(s):  
Great Barrier Reef ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Environmental Communication ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Barrier Reef ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Us ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
A Site

An obituary for the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef) by travel and food writer Rowan Jacobsen (2016) commemorated its ‘lifetime accomplishments’ in Outside, the US outdoor recreational magazine. ‘News’ of the Reef's demise went viral and the economic and political furore that followed was immense. Tourism industries, especially reliant on international arrivals, were impacted as potential visitors accepted the Reef's passing as fact. Politicians scampered to reassure Australians and the globe that the Reef was indeed still alive and beautiful. In the Australian public sphere, climate science deniers, alongside those advocating for climate action, collided over the impacts of global warming to Reef health. Subsequent mass coral bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020 sustained at the very least, the idea that the Reef was, or was soon to be, dead. Our paper follows the idea of a ‘dead Reef’ in the context of historical and recent debates about Reef protection. Using Google Trends, we identify Jacobsen's article as the source of increased Australian and global ideation of a ‘dead Reef’. As a site of local and global environmental communication – where human relations to nature are expressed and understood - the Reef holds extraordinary story telling power. At the current junction then, the way we communicate the Reef is critical to public understanding and political action on climate change. We conclude Jacobsen's article is an example of the problems of satirical communication, serving to amplify existing conflicts and undermine efforts to foster to climate action.

“It just goes against the grain.” Public understandings of genetically modified (GM) food in the UK

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Modification ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Gm Food ◽  
Scientific Innovation ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The Uk

This paper reports on one aspect of qualitative research on public understandings of food risks, focusing on lay understandings of genetically modified (GM) food in a UK context. A range of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical literature on food, risk, and the public understanding of science are reviewed. The fieldwork methods are outlined and empirical data from a range of lay groups are presented. Major themes include: varying “technical” knowledge of science, the relationship between knowledge and acceptance of genetic modification, the uncertainty of scientific knowledge, genetic modification as inappropriate scientific intervention in “nature,” the acceptability of animal and human applications of genetic modification, the appropriate boundaries of scientific innovation, the necessity for GM foods, the uncertainty of risks in GM food, fatalism about avoiding risks, and trust in “experts” to manage potential risks in GM food. Key discussion points relating to a sociological understanding of public attitudes to GM food are raised and some policy implications are highlighted.

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