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Abstract

Researchers and other (human) actors within the apparatus of animal experimentation find themselves in a tight corner. They rely on public acceptance to promote their legitimacy and to receive funding. At the same time, those working with animal experimentation take risks by going public, fearing that the public will misunderstand their work and animal rights activists may threaten them. The dilemma that emerges between openness and secrecy is fairly prevalent in scientific culture as a whole, but the apparatus of animal experimentation presents specific patterns of technologies of secrets. The aim of the paper is to describe and analyse the meanings of secrets and openness in contemporary animal experimentation. We suggest that these secrets – or “selective openness” – can be viewed as grease in the apparatus of animal experimentation, as a unifying ingredient that permits maintenance of status quo in human/animal relations and preserves existing institutional public/science relations.

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With schools and universities closing across Europe, the Covid-19 lockdown left actors in the field of education battling with the unprecedented challenge of finding a meaningful way to keep the wheels of education turning online. The sudden need for digital solutions across the field of education resulted in the emergence of a variety of digital networks and collaborative online platforms. In this joint article from scholars around Europe, we explore the Covid-19 lockdowns of physical education across the European region, and the different processes of emergency digitalization that followed in their wake. Spanning perspectives from Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Nordic countries, the article’s five cases provide a glimpse of how these processes have at the same time accelerated and consolidated the involvement of various commercial and non-commercial actors in public education infrastructures. By gathering documentation, registering dynamics, and making intimations of the crisis as it unfolded, the aim of the joint paper is to provide an opportunity for considering the implications of these accelerations and consolidations for the heterogeneous futures of European education.

This article reports on a study of how teenagers made their decision on whether or not to vaccinate themselves against the new influenza. Its purpose was to identify connections between how teenagers talk about themselves and the decision they made. How do the teenagers construct their identities while talking about a specific socio-scientific issue? Seven teenagers between 17 and 19 years of age participated in the study. The informants were requested to document in video diary situations in which their decisions about the vaccination were discussed. All the teenagers recorded their diaries during the weeks of the vaccination programme. The students were also interviewed 1-4 weeks after completing their diaries. A discourse psychology framework (Potter and Wetherell 1987) was used to analyse the video diaries and the interviews. In this context, decision-making on a socioscientific issue must be understood as an appropriation and use of discursive repertoires, and also as meaning-making in relation to other fields, such as society and identity. It must also be understood in relation to the use of science repertoire-or actually, the school science repertoire-how available is this discourse in different contexts outside school? The repertoires were categorised into two main types; experienced emphases and important actors. The first included the categories of risk, solidarity and knowledge. The second included family and friends, media, school and society. The school repertoire was seldom used by the students, indicating that school and science education seem not to be an interpretative repertoire available to them. Instead, the risk, solidarity, family and friends and the media repertoires were available in their talk about vaccination. These results indicate the need to use media reports in dealing with scientific literacy and also in risk assessment discussions in school. It also indicates the importance of relating school science closely to the students' daily life.

There are only a few studies about how primary school students engage in socio-scientific discussions. This study aims to add to this field of research by focusing on how 9-10 year olds in Sweden and England handle climate change as a complex environmental socio-scientific issue, within the context of their own lives and in relation to society at large. It focuses on how different interpretative repertoires were used by the students in discussions to legitimise or question their everyday lifestyles. They discussed four possible options that a government might consider to help reduce carbon dioxide production. Six main repertoires were identified: Everyday life, Self-Interest, Environment, Science and Technology, Society and Justice. The Everyday life repertoire was used when students related their discussion to their everyday lifestyles. Science and technology-related solutions were offered to maintain or improve things, but these were sometimes rather unrealistic.Arguments related to environment and health frequently appeared to have a superior status compared to the others. Findings also highlighted how conflicts between the students were actually productive by bringing in several perspectives to negotiate the solutions. These primary school students were therefore able to discuss and negotiate a complex real-world socio-scientific issue.Students positioned themselves as active contributors to society, using their life experiences and limited knowledge to understand the problems that affected their everyday lives. Honing these skills within a school science community of practice could facilitate primary students' engagement with socio-scientific issues and empower them as citizens.

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