Broken Images, Gilded Images: Descriptions of Scientists over Time

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This project examines how gender, ethnicity, and formal and "informal" educational dimensions affect images of scientists, and how these images relate to civic science literacy. Analyses employ the NSF Surveys of Public Attitudes Toward Science and Technology: 1979-2001. These analyses examine how formal education interacts with cultural resources in 1983 and 2001 to affect images of scientists. By increasing our knowledge about the cultural resources people reference about science, this project may help craft media that can directly teach, be used as examples to promote critical thinking in the general public, promote more favorable images of scientists, or debunk psychics and other ersatz practitioners who regularly appear in media outlets. There also has been a resurgence of public interest in under represented groups, e.g., women, African-Americans and Hispanics in specific science and technology occupations. The images of scientists that adults transmit to youth help create a climate affecting the appeal of science careers. By counteracting stereotyped views of obsessive and peculiar scientists, we may increase the number and diversity of gifted individuals who find science careers more attractive.