published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Over the past thirty years, public interest science organizations have had significant and varied effects on the course of several contemporary social movements, on public knowledge of science, and on policy ranging from weapons to toxic waste to recombinant DNA. This dissertation considers the origins of these organizations, and their differential ability to survive. Archival, interview, and secondary data analyses of three prominent public interest science organizations: Scientists' Institute for Public Information, Science for the People, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are used to examine these questions. This research shows that these organizations were formed by scientists in the 1950s and 1960s who found that their political commitments were increasingly at odds with scientific demands for objectivity and value-neutrality. The tension arose as a result of three factors: the liberalization of the political climate in the 1950s and 1960s, the development of political protest that charged science with being complicit making war possible and the encouragement, even demand, that Leftists find ways to join their professional and political lives. As a result, some scientists created new organizations that publicly defined scientists as socially responsible. Once created, however, these organizations faced a rapidly changing political, scientific and organizational climate that made their survival difficult. I show how early choices about goals, membership, activities, and division of labor in each group strongly shaped the differential ability of organizations to survive over time. Adaptive survival is shown to be related to the ability of an organization to engage in repeated and routinized exchanges with other individuals and groups, which is in turn dependent on choices organizations make within months of their founding. The last section of the dissertation suggests how public interest science organizations (both individually and collectively) expand the political capacities of scientists and the public, affect the practice and subject matter of science, and shaped the lives of the participants.

This exploratory investigation aimed to identify preservice science teachers' conceptions of the nature of science (NOS), and worldviews that represent their culturally dependent beliefs about the world, in the context of Taiwan. The interrelationships between the responses elicited from both the assessments of NOS understandings and worldviews were examined. Participants included 54 third-year students enrolled in the departments of science education and mathematics education at a teachers college. Their worldviews and NOS conceptions were tabulated by two questionnaires and 14 of them were purposefully selected to participate follow-up interviews. The woridview questionnaire contained five open-ended items, of which each examines one of the worldview domains in Kearney's model (1984). The NOS questionnaire consisting of nine open-ended questions was developed, specifically addressing cultural characteristics, to assess participants' views on the development of scientific knowledge. An anthropocentric-moderate continuum emerged to describe participants' views of the humanity's relationship with Nature. It was found that participants with informed NOS conceptions were more likely to emphasize harmony with Nature, recognize the limitations of scientific knowledge, and accept the idea that science involves subjective and cultural components. On the other hand, participants who provided a pragmatic perspective of Nature seemed to possess narrow views about the scientific enterprises by describing science as close to technology and as a materialistic benefit. Authoritarianism was also a noticeable cultural trait hindering some participants from reflecting on the values inherent to the development of scientific knowledge, and also prohibiting them from searching empirical evidence to solve problems. It was found that there were differences between science education and mathematics education majors in their worldviews and NOS understandings. The results in this study not only depict a group of nonwestern preservice teachers' woridviews, but also reveal the interplay between their sociocultural beliefs and NOS conceptions. People with different worldviews may have differing views about science. The study calls for the consideration of incorporating sociocultural perspectives in science instruction and the need for introducing contemporary conceptions of the NOS to science learners. / Graduation date: 2003

A lot of scholars have alluded to the existence of indigenous knowledge among community elders. The purpose of this study was to explore existence of indigenous science understandings among Zulu elders and determine the impact of these understandings on the indigenous secondary school learners. A group of elders and a group of learners from a selected rural community were interviewed on three phenomena pertaining to biology and physical science. Each phenomenon was chosen according to its relevance to the traditional African practices of the rural community studied. The data from both groups was analysed to determine understandings held by each group. Findings of this study revealed that elders held indigenous science understandings that had an impact on the indigenous secondary school learners. Elders transmit these understandings as views that I chose to call indigenous conceptions and duality explanation conceptions. As a result of the impact of elders' views and school science, learners on the other hand held three types of conceptions, namely, unchanged indigenous conceptions, hybridised conceptions and duality explanation conceptions. The recommendations I made are based on the findings that elders' indigenous knowledge has an impact on learners' science understandings. This then has implications to classroom practices and science education. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

Orientador: Lea Maria Leme Strini Velho / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-11T15:35:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Weihs_MarlaLeci_M.pdf: 4805519 bytes, checksum: 190885f398ea599b5e4cd74cc59b72cb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Este trabalho é um estudo de laboratório, que se apóia metodologicamente nos escritos de Latour e Woolgar (1987), teoricamente em Kohler (2002) e se aplica à comunidade científica de Biologia do Campus da Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT) de Nova Xavantina - MT. Objetiva identificar os fatores que levaram à escolha de determinadas linhas de pesquisa em detrimento de outras. Analisa, também, os condicionantes da constituição dos grupos de pesquisa e como se dá a produção de conhecimento no interior de cada um deles. Para isso, investiga o papel dos fatores institucionais e daqueles ligados ao ambiente local para o desenvolvimento de pesquisa científica; a construção social da agenda de pesquisa e a cultura científica que diferencia os pesquisadores em três tribos - de campo, de fronteira ou de laboratório, - em Biologia. Os resultados do estudo indicam que a qualificação dos profissionais incentivada pela UNEMAT; o fomento a projetos de pequena abrangência, à implementação de infra-estrutura e à aquisição de equipamentos para a pesquisa; a facilidade de desenvolvimento de pesquisas de baixo custo e a especialização dos pesquisadores em linhas de campo e de fronteira, foram os fatores que permitiram o desenvolvimento da pesquisa biológica em uma universidade periférica localizada no interior do Estado de Mato Grosso. Além disso, depreende-se da análise que é a linha de pesquisa escolhida na iniciação científica e na pósgraduação que socializa o pesquisador da área biológica na cultura de pesquisa de campo, de laboratório ou de fronteira. Essa formação é também o ¿bilhete de acesso¿ de uma ¿pessoa comum¿ ao mundo científico, permitindo a ela o aprendizado das técnicas, metodologias, teorias e as ¿atitudes científicas¿ que deve adotar para inserir-se no ciclo de credibilidade que configura o meio científico. Os créditos obtidos na carreira são usados como moedas de troca que permitem o reconhecimento dos pares e de instituições de fomento, ingredientes que são a verdadeira motivação dos pesquisadores, apesar de demonstrarem paixão pela pesquisa biológica / Abstract: This research may be classified as a ¿laboratory study¿ of the biological scientific community of the Mato Grosso State University Campus (UNEMAT) in Nova Xavantina ¿ MT. It follows the methodological approach developed by Latour and Woolgar (1987) and it relies on the concepts of lab and field research proposed by Kohler (2002) applied to. The study aims to identify the factors that lead to the choice of certain biology research lines and not others. It also identifies the determinants of the establishment of research teams and the dynamics of knowledge production in the interior of each team. Ti this end, it investigates the role of institutional factors and of those linked to the local environment on the scientific research development; the social construction of the research agenda and scientific culture that differentiates the researchers into three tribes - field, the border and the laboratory - in Biology. The findings reveal that the factors that enabled the development of biological research in the peripheral countryside university of Mato Grosso State were as follows: the type of professional qualification encouraged by UNEMAT; the funding of small scope projects, the implementation of infrastructure and the purchase of research equipment; the preference for low-cost researches given the easy access to savannah fields and the researchers specialization in specific lines of field and border Biology. , The findings also indicate that a biology researcher chooses to be a field, lab or border researcher since the beginning of his/her career in accordance to the research topic or line of investigation pursued. Research training, be it at the undergraduate or graduate level, is the admission ticket of a "common person" to the scientific world, by enabling the learning of techniques, methodologies, theories and "scientific attitudes" that are part of the cycle of credibility of a specific specialty. The credits earned in their careers are used as currency exchange allowing the recognition of peers and research funding institutions. The latter are the true motivation of the researchers, despite their showing passion for biological research / Mestrado / Mestre em Política Científica e Tecnológica

Orientador: Léa Maria Leme Strini Velho / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T07:05:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Goulart_FernandaLoureiro_D.pdf: 1592338 bytes, checksum: db946ff59d232c3d18f434016315f624 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Esta tese se propõe a discutir a demarcação científica por meio do estudo de um grupo acadêmico específico, O Inter Psi ¿ Laboratório de Psicologia Anomalística e Processos Psicossociais, localizado no Departamento de Psicologia Social e do Trabalho do Instituto de Psicologia da Universidade de São Paulo. O grupo, ativo na parapsicologia há mais de duas décadas, tem defendido uma nova subdisciplina da psicologia, a psicologia anomalística. Informado pelos estudos sociais da ciência e da tecnologia, particularmente por conceitos vindos da teoria ator-rede, e com base em um estudo de observação participativa junto ao Inter Psi, o texto identifica as estratégias do grupo para construir a legitimidade científica dessa nova área, que incluem a criação de uma epistemologia, a definição das características e limites do grupo, a diferenciação em relação à parapsicologia tradicional brasileira e uma série de ações que buscam o aumento da institucionalização da área. Como conclusões, tem-se que a psicologia anomalística se caracteriza como uma estratégia específica de normalização do estudo do paranormal, mas é muito simplista classifica-la como uma mera repaginação da parapsicologia. A mudança de nome permite um espaço para negociar as fronteiras de diversas áreas, como a parapsicologia, a psicologia social, a psicologia da religião e a nova psicologia anomalística. Ainda, conclui-se que a psicologia anomalística se fortalece ao evidenciar lacunas nos conhecimentos psicológico e parapsicológico atuais. Partindo de uma visão das fronteiras da ciência como constantemente negociadas, esta história do Inter Psi descreve a demarcação científica como questão prática e performativa, apontando que para tornar-se ciência é necessário assegurar um nicho acadêmico, não o contrário. Por fim, a tese argumenta que o caso é de interesse para a política de ciência, tecnologia e inovação ao destacar o fato de que cientistas, gestores e analistas têm responsabilidade a respeito da demarcação científica. Defende-se que uma concepção ainda existente da ciência como neutra dificulta uma política mais consciente da importância de seu papel / Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to discuss scientific demarcation through the study of a specific academic group, Inter Psi ¿ Laboratório de Psicologia Anomalística e Processos Psicossociais (Inter Psi ¿ Laboratory of Anomalistic Psychology and Psychosocial Processes), situated in the Department of Social and Labour Psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo. The group, which has been active in the area of parapsychology for over two decades, has defended a new psychological sub discipline: anomalistic psychology. Informed by the social studies of science and technology, particularly by concepts of actor-network theory, and based on a participant observation study with Inter Psi, this text identifies the strategies undertaken by the group in order to build the scientific legitimacy of this new area, which include the creation of an epistemology, the definition of characteristics and scope of the group, the differentiation in relation to traditional Brazilian parapsychology and a number of actions seeking a deeper institutionalisation of the area. As conclusions, it is to note that anomalistic psychology is characterised as a specific strategy for the normalisation of studies on the paranormal, but it is much too simplistic to define it as a mere renaming of parapsychology. The change of terms allows for the renewed negotiation of different knowledge fields, such as parapsychology, social psychology, psychology of religion and the new anomalistic psychology. Moreover, it is concluded that anomalistic psychology claims become stronger when proponents stress gaps in the current psychological and parapsychological knowledge. Stemming from a perspective that sees the borders of science as constantly negotiated and redrawn, this story of Inter Psi describes scientific demarcation as a practical and performative matter, indicating that, in order to be science, there¿s a need for a group or an area to secure an academic niche, not the other way around. Finally, the thesis advances the idea that this case study is of interest to science, technology and innovation policy as it stresses the fact that scientists, managers, advisers and analysts are responsible, to a degree, for scientific demarcation. It argues that there is a still prevalent concept of science as neutral that hampers the possibility of policy that is more conscious of its relevant role / Doutorado / Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica / Doutora em Política Científica e Tecnológica

Orientadores: Maria Conceição da Costa, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueiroa / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T22:10:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carreta_JorgeAugusto_D.pdf: 1645136 bytes, checksum: 628069139e0969a3c34089c9f3ef44ad (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: O objetivo principal desta tese é mostrar o conflituoso processo de aceitação do conhecimento da microbiologia no Brasil entre o final do século XIX e começo do século XX. O foco se concentrou nas polêmicas e controvérsias em torno deste conhecimento entre os cientistas e médicos do Rio de Janeiro. Inicialmente, foram analisados os efeitos da Reforma de 1880 na Faculdade de Medicina, ligada aos projetos de profissionalização dos médicos cariocas, e que ambicionava introduzir os mais recentes avanços da medicina experimental na instituição. O trabalho mostra que essa reforma obteve alguns êxitos, mas teve alcance limitado. Entre as metas não atingidas pelos médicos estava o estabelecimento do consenso acerca do conhecimento que embasaria a sua profissão. Em seguida, essa ausência de consenso é exposta por meio do exame das diversas polêmicas sobre a etiologia, combate e profilaxia das doenças epidêmicas, que assolavam a capital do país desde a década de 1850. Destaque especial foi dado a doenças como a varíola, a febre amarela e o beribéri. Também foi investigada a trajetória do Laboratório de Fisiologia do Museu Nacional, um dos espaços exteriores à Faculdade de Medicina onde se desenvolveram atividades na área de microbiologia. A análise das controvérsias sobre o conhecimento microbiológico, ainda não completamente aceito por todos os médicos e pela sociedade, serviu assim para indicar o grau de experimentalismo e improvisação que ainda marcava a ciência médica no Brasil do último quartel do século XIX. Já no século XX, dois episódios foram escolhidos para continuar a acompanhar esse processo: a fundação do Instituto Soroterápico de Manguinhos (1899) e a Revolta da Vacina (1904). No primeiro caso, foram enfatizadas as dúvidas que rondavam a produção e aplicação de soros curativos. No segundo, foi evidenciada a desconfiança que setores letrados e não letrados tinham do uso da vacina como meio profilático. Finalmente, aponto para a permanência do dissenso sobre a microbiologia nas décadas seguintes usando um debate pouco conhecido da literatura brasileira sobre o tema. Trata-se da disputa entre os partidários das idéias de Louis Pasteur e Antoine Béchap. Este último negava a teoria microbiana das doenças e afirmava que os estados doentios advinham de um desequilíbrio do próprio organismo. Ficou claro que mesmo após fundação do Instituto de Manguinhos, tido por alguns como o marco inicial das atividades científicas no Brasil, a microbiologia ainda levou alguns bons anos para obter o consenso (não absoluto) de que desfruta hoje em dia / Abstract: The main objective of this work is to show the conflictive acceptance process of the microbiology in Brazil in the late XIX and beginnings of XX centuries. The focus was kept in the controversies about this knowledge among the Brazilian scientists and physicians. The first analysis made in this work is the one of the effects of the 1880's reforms in Rio de Janeiro's Medical School that was linked to the profissionalization projects of the Brazilian physicians. This project¿s main goal was to introduce the most recent advances of experimental medicine in that school. The investigation shows that the reform was only partially successful, as they did not achieve a consensus regarding the knowledge that would be the basis of their profession. This lack of consensus is exposed by the analyzes of the polemics about the etiology, combat and prophylaxis of epidemic diseases that had been devastating the capital of the country since 1850. Special prominence is given to illnesses such as smallpox, yellow fever and beriberi. Also the trajectory of the Physiology Laboratory of the National Museum is investigated in this work, known as an outside space to the Medicine School and where activities in the microbiology area were developed. The analyzes of the controversies on the microbiological knowledge, not yet completely accepted by all the doctors and the society, revealed the depth of uncertainty that marked the Brazilian medical science in the last quarter of the XIX century. Already in the XX century, two episodes were chosen to follow this process: the foundation of the Manguinhos Serumtherapeutical Institute (1899) and the Vaccine Revolt (1904). In the first episode, the emphasis is made on the doubts concerning the production and application of serum to cure the epidemic diseases. In the second, there is an exposure of the suspicion of the physicians and population on the vaccine as a way of prophylaxis. Finally, this study shows the permanence of the dissent on the microbiology during the following decades through an almost unknown debate on the history of biology: the dispute between the ideas from Louis Pasteur and the ones from Antoine Béchamp. The last one denied the microbial theory of the illnesses and affirmed that the unhealthy states happens from disequilibrium of the organism itself. The microbiology still took some good years after the foundation of the Manguinhos Institute, fact that would be identified/known by some people as the initial mark of scientific activities in Brazil, to achieve the consensus (not absolute) that it has nowadays / Doutorado / Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica / Doutor em Política Científica e Tecnológica

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop the Response Inventory to Stereotype-threatening Environments Questionnaire (RISE-Q), a multidimensional measure of the intentional cognitive and behavioral strategies women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations engage to contend with systemic stereotype threat. Hundreds of studies demonstrate negative effects of stereotype threat relevant to women’s workplace experiences (for a review see Walton, Murphy, & Ryan, 2015). However, most focus on acute processes and effects, those that are immediate and temporary in response to a single cue. Less is known about how individuals respond to the experience of chronic stereotype threat (Block, Koch, Liberman, Merriweather, & Roberson, 2011). This has implications for organizations because it is unlikely stereotype threat is only experienced as an acute state in the workplace (Kalokerinos, von Hippel, & Zacher, 2014), and it is the accumulation of stereotype threat-activating cues that may lead to permanent outcomes (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). In order to address this gap and contribute to research on women’s career experiences in STEM (Makarem & Wang, 2019), this dissertation develops the RISE-Q, an inventory of three separate, but related, response pattern scales based on three response patterns previously identified by Block, Cruz, Bairley, Harel-Marian, & Roberson (2019): (1) Fending Off the Threat, (2) Confronting the Threat, and (3) Sustaining Self in the Presence of Threat. Seventy-two items across three response pattern scales were developed and tested in a sample of 726 women who currently work in STEM occupations. Results from Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFAs) of data collected from a Qualtrics Panel sample (n = 378) demonstrated each response pattern scale consisted of four factors reflecting four specific strategies. A series of Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs) using data collected from online “women in STEM” networks (n = 348) provided evidence for moderate model fit for the Fending Off response pattern scale, and good model fit for the Confronting Threat and Sustaining Self scales. Assessments of internal consistency reliabilities for all three response pattern scales and associated subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency. Further analyses provided strong evidence of convergent validity and criterion-related validity for all three scales. Initial results for the RISE-Q are promising. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This thesis examines the rhetorical, analytical, and critical efficacy of reflexivity and sociological theory as means for reconciling the normative and descriptive functions of the rhetoric of science. In attempting to define a separate research domain within Science Studies, rhetoric of science has borrowed Strong Program and constructivist principles and descriptions of scientific practice from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as a basis for analyzing scientific discourse. While epistemological claims in the social sciences have been considered inherently self-referential and subject to reflexive analysis and critique, rhetoricians have generally taken these claims on face value and applied them to a treatment of scientific practice. Accordingly, rhetoricians have maintained a natural ontological attitude to sociological theories and descriptions supporting an understanding of scientific discourse as implicitly rhetorical. Recently, however, the concept of "rhetoric" in rhetoric of science has come under scrutiny. This thesis will connect arguments involving the relation of the "irreducibly social" nature of science, to a concept of scientific discourse as rhetorical "without remainder,” to the philosophical commitments of reflexive analysis. Stipulations as to the universal presence and influence of social and rhetorical forces in science substitute, I argue, for a conception of the scientific rhetor as a social type. Although I do not mystify either scientific discourse or practice, I wish to provide grounds for determining whether, given claims about the nature and relation of scientific discourse and practice, rhetorical analyses can be considered either trivial or substantive, descriptive or normative, or even rhetorical or social. / Master of Science

The dissertation focuses on the history of Russian chemistry between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Present scholarship contends that the growth and maturation of chemistry in Russia was a straitlaced process, state imposed and directed, and critically tied to the founding of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (1724-1725). Within this generally accepted school of thought, the infrastructure, codes of conduct, and ways of thinking that are the precursors of a vibrant chemical culture had no precedent in Russia, and historians portray them as having sprung up overnight by the founding of this institution. This dissertation refutes this seemingly immaculate conception of chemistry on Russia soil. Through a detailed examination of primary sources, including manuscript collections of artisanal recipes, legal contracts, tsarist decrees and acts (Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov), canon codes (Stoglav), synodal correspondence, printed annual calendars (Kalendar' ili Mesiatsoslov Khristianskii) and almanacs (Brius Calendars), as well as academic papers, chemical journals, public lectures, odes, correspondence, and artifacts of Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-1765), this study details how chemical practices, practitioners, and ideas across a multiplicity of sites grew, diversified, and entered the scholarly and courtly domains in the course of the eighteenth century in Russia. By uncovering a vibrant chemical culture that existed before the founding of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and continued to thrive alongside it, this dissertation shows not only that Early Modern Russia hosted a robust knowledge-generating culture, but also that practical chemistry was endemic to Russia’s material and cultural landscape. In doing so, it lays to rest the enduring but erroneous scholarly assumption that the natural sciences, including chemistry, had no indigenous roots in Russia and were forcibly and belatedly transplanted onto Russian soil only in the eighteenth century. Such assertions imply that Russia was not only a docile recipient of scientific disciplines and thus played no role in their formation but also that scientific disciplines arrived on Russian shores as fully mature sciences with stable disciplinary identities and practices agreed upon by an international community of practitioners. This dissertation makes two central claims. First, it argues that the entry of chemistry into the Academy was a dynamic process, negotiated by a confluence of actors, historical contingencies, and private interests, and not imposed by the state from above. To do so, it broadens the category of “science” and “scientific” to include pre-industrial processes and technologies, while outlining the essential preconditions for the development of a scientific culture. Second, it underscores the centrality of projects and projecting strategies to the crystallization of Russia’s popular scientific culture and discourse, and the development of chemistry as an academic discipline and a courtly science. This forces us to look at projecting not only as a hobbyhorse of adventurers, parvenus, and profit-seekers, but as a meaningful and epistemologically generative activity. In the middle of the eighteenth century, there were still many ways of doing academic chemistry, including Lomonosov’s Wolffian synthesis of “Physical Chymistry” (chymiae physicae or физическая химия), which had crystallized in the course of his projecting. Despite being grounded in corpuscular philosophy, Lomonosov’s “Physical Chymistry” offered a promising experimental framework for the study of chemical principles (first order constituents of mixed bodies), which was still mostly considered beyond the reach of chymical inquiry.