CfP: Pedagogy, Popularization, and the Public Understanding of Science, ECR conference, May 28-29, 2020
The Fellows of the Beckman Center at the Science History Institute are pleased to invite proposals for a two-day graduate and early-career conference on science education, science popularization, and their histories. The conference will be held at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA on May 28–29, 2020.
We are interested in the interactions between science education and science popularization from the perspective of history and social science. For more than a decade now, scholarship in these fields has recognized the central role of pedagogy and training in creating new scientists and structuring research practice. It has also expanded enquiry to encompass the impact of science and technology upon diverse publics in a range of popular media, including print publications, the Internet, and entertainment programs. While formal professional training is one segment of science education, the informal educational opportunities offered in these media, together with K-12 science curricula, have a potentially universal reach. In short, the representation of science and its history shape fundamental conceptions of what science is and what it should be.
We seek to bring these areas of inquiry into dialogue in order to problematize and better
understand the categories of “education,” “popularization,” and their histories across diverse sites of potential teaching and learning. Our keynote speakers will be Professor John Rudolph of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Professor Kathryn Olesko of Georgetown University.
We invite proposals on a broad range of topics and questions including, but not limited to:
• Science education and the practice of science: How do laboratory practices of teaching and research shape one another? At what point does the science student become a professional scientist, and what are the effects of the ambiguous timing of that transition?
• Systems of science education: How are the structures of formal science education built,
maintained, and overhauled? What historical forces have shaped, and continue to shape,
educational systems in current use?
• The use of history in teaching science: What messages or skills are historical narratives of science used to teach, overtly or tacitly? Who decides what stories are told and how? How do those narratives translate into student conceptions of historical and current science? How do they affect perceptions of the racial, class, and gendered dimensions of science?
• Popularization as science education: What are the histories and effects of narratives created by science-related media? How have fictional portrayals of science changed, and why? How have popular media narratives contributed to the public image and self-image of the scientist?
• Popular histories of science: How have portrayals of the history of science in popular media changed in television, books, movies, and online? Why do specific histories become popular (in any sense of the term) over time, who chooses them, and for what purposes?
• Science education and the practice of science: How do laboratory practices of teaching and research shape one another? At what point does the science student become a professional scientist, and what are the effects of the ambiguous timing of that transition?
• Systems of science education: How are the structures of formal science education built,
maintained, and overhauled? What historical forces have shaped, and continue to shape,
educational systems in current use?
• The use of history in teaching science: What messages or skills are historical narratives of science used to teach, overtly or tacitly? Who decides what stories are told and how? How do those narratives translate into student conceptions of historical and current science? How do they affect perceptions of the racial, class, and gendered dimensions of science?
• Popularization as science education: What are the histories and effects of narratives created by science-related media? How have fictional portrayals of science changed, and why? How have popular media narratives contributed to the public image and self-image of the scientist?
• Popular histories of science: How have portrayals of the history of science in popular media changed in television, books, movies, and online? Why do specific histories become popular (in any sense of the term) over time, who chooses them, and for what purposes?
Please submit an abstract or session proposal of up to 250 words per presentation and a two-page CV for each participant to fellowsconf@sciencehistory.org
The deadline for all submissions is February 3rd, 2020, and notification of acceptance will be made by February 28th. Conference travel and accommodation subsidies are available for accepted speakers.
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