Science and the Public Pushing PUS with Science Studies. What Kind of ‘Public Understanding of Science’ Programs Best Serve a Democracy?

This paper explores how the “public understanding of science” might be reconceptualized in light of the recent sociological treatments of consumption. I consider the implications that the rise of consumer culture and the increasing aesthetisization of everyday life have for micro-and macro-sociological studies in the public understanding of science. In particular, I examine how consumer culture impacts upon the status of the “lay local” and the nature of citizenship as they relate to the public understanding of science and scientific literacy. Further, I explore how the discourses and techniques of public understanding of science studies might contribute to the formulation of the lay person as consumer. Finally; in light of these points, I formulate a number of research questions that might enable the development of the “public understanding of science.”

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Understanding understanding: a model for the public learning of radioactivity

Public Understanding of Science ◽

10.1088/0963-6625/8/4/301 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 267-284 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

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.

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The roles of rhetoric in the public understanding of science

Public Understanding of Science ◽

10.1088/0963-6625/3/1/001 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 3-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 109

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.

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