This study brings together the analysis of a magazine for children published in a mass-circulation newspaper in a poor industrialized country. Based on a comprehensive survey of articles popularizing science, technology and health topics printed in Notícias Miudinho between 1924 and 1933, this paper intends to show how this publication tuned in with the on-going Portuguese political and educational agenda, while highlighting the idiosyncrasies of the networks involved in the publication of the magazine. In addition, and based on the analysis of the magazine’s mail section, this paper questions historiographic claims about the reduced impact of the Republican education programme. At the same time, this essay intends to contribute to the discussion on the historicity of ‘popular science’ while putting in evidence the importance of understanding the particularities of the actors and networks involved locally to grasp the full extent to which science culturally permeates, mirrors and models society worldwide.
This article addresses and discusses one of the first literary attempts to extend the communication of science to young people – agriculture being the case in point – through moralizing and educational novels in early twentieth-century Portugal. In this study, I show that a set of popular books on agriculture addressing horticulture, poultry farming, beekeeping, dairy farming, silkworm breeding, orchard culture and fish farming written for young people by the agricultural engineer João Coelho da Motta Prego – coupled with popularizing articles about agricultural policy and agronomy written by him in the daily press – clearly served the purpose of re-educating the Portuguese rural inhabitant and reviving the country's agriculture-based economy. The article showcases how locality drives the way science and technology are addressed, what is communicated, who writes for whom, and the purpose of the writing itself. It highlights how science popularization/popular science, in its various formats (i.e. science, technology and medicine), can be more than a way to teach science to a lay audience.
Science for children and young people is an important, yet often neglected, subject in the historiography of science. It has gained attention due to the growing interest in science popularization. Like popular science, science for children and young people is a historical topic rich in fascinating stories about the ways in which scientific knowledge travels through society and culture. Although children and young people certainly belong to wider audiences for science outside the realm of specialized science, we have come to believe that studying science for children and young people allows us to probe even deeper into the ways in which science interacts with people's lives, their social relations and their hopes for the future. Children and young people since the Enlightenment have come to occupy a special role in Western society, and ideas about humankind, culture, learning, development and science have all been associated with childhood. When adults have presented scientific knowledge to children, they have not only built ideas (often ideals) about social order and proper upbringing into their materials, but also reflected upon questions about science in relation to children's capacity for acquiring new knowledge. We argue that children and young people historically and culturally constitute an important ‘other’ for science, and the historiography of science will benefit from taking on the topic of science for children and young people in this light.
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