Science Literacy Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences (2016) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Science Literacy for Communities
4 Science Literacy for Communities
Pages 73-84
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 73... ...
We examine community-level science literacy through examples of communities that accomplish various goals, by virtue of their collective literacy, that cannot be easily attributed to the actions of any particular individual.1 Science literacy in a community does not require each individual to attain a particular threshold of knowledge, skills, and abilities; rather, it is a matter of a community having sufficient shared resources that are distributed and organized in such a way that the varying abilities of community members work in concert to contribute to the community's overall well-being (e.g., Dewey, 1927; Roth and Lee, 2002; Ownby et al., 2014)
|
From page 74... ...
Alarmed at the rapid progress of the disease and high mortality rates, AIDS activists developed scientific knowledge (including an understanding of scientific practices) to demand modifications to drug-testing procedures and to the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval policies; working together, they successfully advocated for alternatives to the placebo-control protocol for clinical trials (previously a cornerstone of biomedical procedures)
|
From page 75... ...
This field is now home to an increasing number of research programs that are studying science literacy at the community level. A related phenomenon is popular epidemiology, first defined in the early 1990s by sociologists studying communities with unusually high incidence of cancer linked to industrial pollution (Brown, 1992; Allen, 2003)
|
From page 76... ...
SCIENCE-LITERATE COMMUNITIES Although the above examples are compelling in their own right, the question that concerns us here is to what extent the communities formed to pursue social activism, popular epidemiology, or participatory environmental monitoring can be characterized as science literate. The evidence is compelling that the success of these communities in promoting policy changes and other outcomes depends, at least in part, on their ability to develop knowledge of science- and health-related issues, as well as knowledge of general scientific practices, and on their capacity for sophisticated interaction (both internally and externally)
|
From page 77... ...
Some, though not all, of the existing research literature points to the importance of strong individual leaders who aid in the coordination of knowledge and resources scattered throughout the community. Existing networks and organi 3Some scholars argue that the divide between indigenous knowledge and science is artificial and that indigenous knowledge systems should be considered scientific in their own right (Agrawal, 1995; Bang and Medin, 2010)
|
From page 78... ...
. The AIDS treatment activism movement, described above, brought together a broad and diverse group of community members, including grassroots activists and advocacy organizations to health educators, journalists, writers, service providers, and people with AIDS or HIV infection (Epstein, 1995, p.
|
From page 79... ...
Although science literacy does not require making an original contribution to scientific knowledge, the committee asserts that the creation of new scientific knowledge is a compelling demonstration of science literacy. Research from the fields of health and environmental social movements, participatory environmental monitoring, and popular epidemiology converges on the finding that communities can and do contribute to new scientific knowledge in diverse and substantive ways (see, e.g., Kinchy et al., 2014; Bonney et al., 2009; Cohn, 2008)
|
From page 80... ...
examined community-based participatory research in New York, California, Oklahoma, and North Carolina, documenting partnerships that researched environmental health problems and worked to educate legislators and promote relevant public policy. At each of the sites they studied, the pooling of diverse skills, mutual respect for the expertise of other partners, and a co-learning environment in which additional skill building took place contributed to community capacity building and partnership development (Israel et al., 2005, p.
|
From page 81... ...
. Though these communities are, from their own perspective, working to achieve a particular goal on a sciencerelated issue, they interpret particular scientific arguments and findings in ways that diverge from the scientific consensus, and they do not build or apply science knowledge in the ways that many in the scientific community (and the public health community)
|
From page 82... ...
shows how regulatory standards and standardized practices cemented resistance to citizens' broader participation in air quality monitoring in Norco, Louisiana. Activists promoted an alternative to standardized air monitoring practices, using methods that measured short-term spikes in air pollution levels rather than the standard strategies that measure the average concentrations of toxic chemicals over long periods.
|
From page 83... ...
Given that the ability of certain communities to build and apply their science literacy is constrained by social structures, developing science literacy in communities may also require supporting and empowering communities to act on knowledge. For example, research from the health literacy field suggests that building health literacy requires a broad range of educational and communication methods (such as personal forms of communication and community-based educational outreach)
|
From page 84... ...
Future research should explicitly consider the development and uses of science literacy in community contexts and its value in achieving community goals.7 Furthermore, in most cases there has been little effort to assess, prior to the start of community action or controversy, what level of science literacy was present in the community at the level of individuals in the community or how it is distributed.8 It is difficult to imagine doing so in most cases, since community action and controversy are typically what draws the attention of researchers. As a result, it may be difficult to test a cause-andeffect relationship between "enhanced" science or health literacy and particular community-level outcomes, so that one has to infer what a community had to know in order to accomplish a particular goal.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.