23. Science communication, advising, and advocacy in public debates

Schrögel, Philipp; Humm, Christian

doi:10.1515/9783110255522-023

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Although STEM education intends to equally position all learners as insiders to STEM, barriers for STEM identity development in underserved learners have been found in both formal and informal STEM learning settings. Informal STEM education institutions such as museums, science centers, and other science communication formats often do not reach people from low socio-economic backgrounds, ethnic minorities, and people from non-academic backgrounds due to their non-inclusive designs (Dawson, 2014a,b;Schrögel et al, 2018). Furthermore, various studies have found challenges for underserved learners in STEM fields in formal education.…”

Section: Stem Identity Development Of Underserved Learnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reimagining informal STEM learning opportunities to foster STEM identity development in underserved learners

2023

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Informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities offer great potential to position learners as insiders to STEM and to foster their positive STEM identity development. Despite their goal to create equal insights and access to STEM learning for all, however, these informal STEM learning opportunities often fail to reach underserved students, hindering their STEM identity development and perpetuating inequity. To address this issue, out-of-school programs need to be designed with underserved students in mind, and concepts, as well as practical approaches that foster STEM identity development, need to be identified. In this article, we review 13 peer-reviewed publications that investigate informal STEM learning opportunities for underserved learners at a young age. We synthesize concepts such as competence, performance, recognition, supportive relationships, sense of belonging, agency, interest, and attitudes that influence underserved learners’ STEM identity development, and corresponding practical approaches such as personal relationships, role models, authentic settings, hands-on-activities, and non-stereotypical structures fostering agency. We also discuss theoretical frameworks for underserved learners’ STEM identity development. We suggest that recognition, a sense of belonging, supportive relationships, and agency play important roles in fostering STEM identity development in underserved students. The paper concludes with recommendations to change traditional patterns in informal and formal STEM education to empower underserved students to construct their own STEM identity as agentic individuals.

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Section: Stem Identity Development Of Underserved Learnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reimagining informal STEM learning opportunities to foster STEM identity development in underserved learners

2023

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“…Such perceptions can either make the experts look less trustworthy to everyone, because the public does not see them as objective, or only to those who oppose the specific policy the experts advocate for (Vraga et al, 2018). Nevertheless, the empirical evidence on the effects of advocacy is scarce and inconclusive (Schrögel & Humm, 2019). Beall et al (2017) investigate the effects of scientists' advocacy on two health and two environmental policy issues.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Citizens Judge Health Experts Through a Partisan Lens? Evidence from a Factorial Survey Experiment

Hanimann

2023

Swiss Political Sci Review

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Scholars have claimed that right‐wing citizens are more skeptical about experts than left‐wing citizens. This article, however, argues that depending on their party affiliation, citizens prefer certain kinds of expertise over others. I confronted Swiss adults (N = 2,465) with individual risk advice on either flu vaccination or colorectal cancer screening. The quote varied regarding the expert providing the advice (e.g., academic, administration, or corporation) and the degree of policy advocacy. The citizens then assessed the experts' credibility and their own behavioral intention (e.g., get a flu shot). Citizens across the political spectrum are more likely to positively evaluate experts who represent institutions aligned with their beliefs. Moreover, right‐wing citizens are more skeptical about experts who advocate for specific policies than their left‐wing counterparts. This study underscores the need for a better understanding of how partisanship affects expert perceptions to manage health policy problems and other science‐based issues.

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“…While open support for climate policy affects the perception of the objectivity of scientists, it does not affect their perceived trustworthiness (Cologna et al, 2021). While the general perceptions of scientists' role in public discourses have often been discussed, if and how scientists include advice in their direct public communications has raised little scholarly attention so far (Schrögel & Humm, 2020).…”

Section: Visible Scientists Addressing Politics On Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

“You Can Do Better Than That!”: Tweeting Scientists Addressing Politics on Climate Change and Covid-19

Biermann

Peters

Taddicken

2023

MaC

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Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are global challenges in which scientists play a crucial role, and immediate political actions are necessary. However, in contrast to climate change, strong governmental actions have been taken during the pandemic. While climate change has been on the public agenda for several decades, the pandemic is a rather new issue. In such cases, social media offer scientists the potential to disseminate scientific results to the public and express calls to action and their personal views towards politics. Thus far, little is known about the extent to which scientists make use of this option. In this study, we investigated the similarities and differences between visible German climate experts and visible German Covid-19 experts regarding advocacy and assessments of policies and political actors on Twitter. We conducted a manual content analysis of tweets (N = 5,915) from 2021 of the most visible climate experts (N = 5) and the most visible Covid-19 experts (N = 5). The results show that climate experts addressed politics more often than Covid-19 experts in their tweets. The selected climate experts more often expressed negative evaluations, the degradation of competence and blaming. The Covid-19 experts, however, made more political calls for action. We assume that an issue’s history and context will affect scientists’ public assessments of politics. Our comparative study provides insight into the interrelations between science and politics in digital communication environments and elucidates visible scientists’ communication behaviours towards different socio-scientific issues.

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23. Science communication, advising, and advocacy in public debates

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Reimagining informal STEM learning opportunities to foster STEM identity development in underserved learners

Reimagining informal STEM learning opportunities to foster STEM identity development in underserved learners

Do Citizens Judge Health Experts Through a Partisan Lens? Evidence from a Factorial Survey Experiment

“You Can Do Better Than That!”: Tweeting Scientists Addressing Politics on Climate Change and Covid-19

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