Abstract

CONCEICAO, Cristina Palma et al. Promoting scientific culture: experiments in sociology. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2008, n.57, pp.51-81. ISSN 0873-6529.

In recent years, this country has seen the extensive proliferation of activities promoting scientific culture. These are, typically, activities that relate science to society. However, they have been developed to a much greater extent by the natural sciences than the social sciences. In the light of this paradox, a group of researchers at CIES-ISCTE (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology), has sought, within the framework of the Ciência Viva/Living Science programme, to test activities involving the dissemination of sociology. These are based on the participation of the publics in research activities, in direct contact with researchers and research contexts. This article analyses these activities, their actors and processes and their repercussions throughout the first years in which they were implemented. It also discusses the theoretical bases of this form of promoting scientific culture, attempting to overcome the limitations of both the so-called “deficit model” and the “standard criticisms of the deficit model”, in favour of an analysis of the dissemination of science as it is really carried out.

Keywords : scientific culture; experimental learning of sciences; free-choice learning; dissemination of sociology; sociology of science.

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