Is Science for Everyone? Exploring Intersectional Inequalities in Connecting With Science

Several studies have investigated the way learners connect with science, re-emphasising persisting inequalities in science learning. This article combines the concept of intersectionality with the theoretical lens of science learning ecologies to focus on inequalities in connecting with science: Which factors influence the formation of a positive science attitude of young learners and how does the social background of young learners influence their opportunities of connecting with science, focusing on the intersections of class and gender? Based on a quantitative survey among 1,486 visitors of non-formal science education offers aged between 8 and 21, we analyze important factors for the development of a positive science attitude and investigate structural inequalities. The intersectional perspective was implemented in the sampling, survey design as well as its analysis. Using composite indicators of age and gender as well as gender and educational capital, we avoid a homogenisation of broadly defined groups. The results highlight that the development of a highly positive science attitude–as identified in a stepwise logistic regression model–is linked to supportive social environments, intrinsic motivation, science learning in school as well as regular engagement in arts-based learning, and self-directed science learning. The learning ecology perspective illustrates the influence of school on science attitudes in general. From an intersectional perspective, however, our findings demonstrate that the persistence of an androcentric and classist concept of science is not compatible with every learning ecology; male learners from educationally affluent backgrounds are most likely to enjoy science learning and see how science relates to their everyday realities. In turn, however, not only female learners with lower educational capital but also male learners with lower educational capital might find it more difficult to connect with science. The intersectional approach unveiled the multiple ways educational capital and gender shape individual learning ecologies. More equitable science learning spaces and offers have to adapt to a diversity of needs and preferences in order to make science activities enjoyable for all.

Analisis Emosi Akademik Sains dalam Pembelajaran Fisika dan Dampaknya terhadap Prestasi Mahasiswa

This study aims to analyze the science academic emotions of undergraduate students on physics learning especially e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is a descriptive study using a qualitative approach. The subjects in the study were 119 students in the second semester. Then, this study uses several instruments, namely questionnaires, tests, and portfolio sheets. The results of the analysis show several important findings, namely 1) undergraduate students have good enough academic emotions, 2) positive science academic emotions have an impact on student academic achievement, and 3) 80.25% of students enjoy online physics learning and tend to have better levels of self-confidence

The Archive

This chapter examines Derrida’s writings on the archive and, more particularly, his reflections on the archive of psychoanalysis. Although texts such as Mal d’archive (Archive Fever) have often been held as heralding a ‘theoretical’ turn in archival studies, Derrida’s writings on the archive continually question the limitations of any theory, concept, or science of the archive. Part of the archive’s resistance to conceptualization lies in its relationship to what calls Derrida ‘originary technicity’, a structure which concerns not only the material space of paper but also the psyche as a mnemic archive and the virtual or digital archive. If a firm distinction between these three types of archive can never be guaranteed, this indistinction has important consequences for psychoanalytic therapy and for the ‘positive’ science of history. The latter is explored here through Derrida’s reading of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable. For Derrida, the archive’s structural resistance to interpretation—what he elsewhere calls its ‘absolute secrecy’—means that it is always the site of passionate investments. Freud’s account of the psyche as a space of archival preservation already suggests this imbrication of affect and technicity, as Derrida shows in his reading of Freud’s Delusion and Dream in Jensen’s Gradiva.

Speculations

This chapter addresses the vexed relationship between deconstruction and science. ‘Speculation’ is a term common both to Derrida’s early reading of Hegelian speculative philosophy and to his extensive reflection on psychoanalysis in texts such as La Carte postale (The Post Card). In its account of Freud’s singular synthesis of concrete observation and fictive speculation in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, La Carte postale provides an unexpectedly rich interrogation of the logic of scientific discovery, one at odds with recent caricatures of Derrida’s thought by proponents of a ‘speculative’ materialism. Freud’s speculations on the pleasure principle allow Derrida to explore psychoanalysis’s status as a ‘positive’ science, its relationship to technology (or technoscience), as well as the limits of psychoanalysis’s own self-delimitation vis-à-vis its various others: metaphysics, religion, and literature or fiction. Positive science’s structural dependency on ‘speculative fictions’ has implications for our understanding of both science and fiction, but it also has implications for recent calls by neuropsychoanalysts to do away with the speculative dimensions of psychoanalytic inquiry.

Beyond the Empirical Turn: Elements for an Ontology of Engineering

This paper aims to sketch a critical historicisation of the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. After presenting Achterhuis’s definition of the empirical turn, I show how its final outcome is an ontophobic turn, i.e. a rejection of Heidegger’s legacy. Such a rejection culminates in the Mr Wolfe Syndrome, the metamorphosis of the philosophy of technology into a positive science which, in turn, depends on an engineerisation/problematisation of reality, i.e. the eclipse of the difference between ‘problem’ and ‘question’. My objection is that if Technology as such becomes nothing, then the paradoxical accomplishment of the empirical turn is the self-suppression of the philosophy of technology. As a countermovement, I propose an ontophilic turn, i.e. the establishment of a philosophy of technology in the nominative case whose first step consists in a Heidegger renaissance.

Value-free paradise is lost. Economists could learn from artists

Despite the conclusions from the contemporary philosophy of science, many economists cherish the ideal of positive science. Therefore, value-free economics is still the central paradigm in economics. The first aim of the paper is to investigate economics’ axiomatic assumptions from an epistemological perspective. The critical analysis of the literature shows that the positive-normative dichotomy is exaggerated. Moreover, value-free economics is based on normative foundations that have a negative impact on individuals and society. The paper’s second aim is to show that economics’ normativity is not a problem because the discussion concerning values is possible and unavoidable. In this context, Weber and other methodologists are investigated. The conclusion of the paper is that science can thrive without strict methodological rules thanks to institutional mechanisms. Therefore, economists could learn from artists who accept the world without absolute rules. This perspective opens the possibility for methodological pluralism and normative approaches.

Walras in the light of Marx, Lacan and his own

ABSTRACT This article discusses Léon Walras’s conception of pure science, which naturalizes market prices. We then show how Marx critically explains the naturalization of economic phenomena in general. Then - based on Jacques Lacan’s theory of the subject - we indicate how the discourse of positive science contributes to the formation of technoscientific knowledge and, specially, to the diffusion of the neoclassical theory. Moreover, the article shows that this understanding of knowledge contributes to deduct from the responsibilities of technobureaucrats for potentially disastrous consequences of the application of positive science to society.

Positive Economics From the Perspective of Kant's Thought

Departing from Kant's thought, we could argue that the portrait of homo economicus drawn by positive economics corresponds to a homo phainomenon as a heteronomous person of concrete economic reality. In addition, we could try to show that economics could not get rid of naturalism, materialism, and fatalism, justifying Kant's concerns. We could also emphasize that, while in the beginning the aim of being a positive science to be able to produce synthetic a posteriori propositions, positive economics tried to continue its way by the method of synthetic a priori. Finally, we must also point out the possibility for an autonomous or free homo noumenon to establish an original ethos by setting goals for itself.