CFP reminder: ESHS Symposium on "Science for children", Lisbon, 4-6 September 2014



Science for children


CALL FOR PAPERS for a session at the ESHS Conference, Lisbon, 4-6 September 2014.

Science for children has often been enmeshed with moral, religious and
social agendas in more or less obvious ways. In this sense, understanding
the way science has been communicated to the youngest can offer insights
into how science has been used for shaping tomorrow’s citizens. Did these
campaigns really contribute to strengthening the technological foundations
of modern societies? What do we actually know about the means, the actors,
the strategies, the contexts, and the outcomes surrounding science
communication targeted at a pre-teenage audience in various places and at
various times? While research on popular science has made significant
progress in the last decades, science for children is a topic that is, with
few exceptions, largely understudied. This session intends to bundle the
existing approaches and bringing people with various backgrounds together
to discuss “science for children” from a historical perspective.


Participants are invited to address issues such as:


    - Sources: Books, juvenile encyclopedias, comics, serials, sticker
    collections, newspapers, science toys and games, television programs and
    films for children. Science topics covered. Ways of representing
science.
    Popular science books for children versus popular science books for
adults.
    - Reception: Children as an audience: children´s reception of popular
    science books in public libraries. Children´s reception of television
    science shows. Preferred topics.
    - Actors: Children as authors. Ways of representing science. Editors and
    educators. Parents and politicians.
    - Institutions: Science education for children (curricula, text books).
    Science clubs, science fairs and science museums for children.
    - Strategies: Popular science books versus school science textbooks for
    children. Opening minds to new ideas versus framing minds for learning?
    Iconography, literary styles, rhetorical devices and types of discourse
    used in science texts for children.
    - Ideologies: Influence of political, religious, moral and social codes
    on the way science is communicated to children.
    - International circulation and local appropriation.

This call is open for other tantalizing questions. Please, feel free to
make your contribution.

Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 1 January 2014

Please send me an abstract in English (maximum 400-words, including title,
name(s) & affiliation(s) of the author(s)) (isabel.zilhao@gmail.com).


Isabel Zilhão

Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT)

Faculty of sciences, C4 building, room 4.3.09, Campo Grande

1749-016 Lisboa

Portugal