Date of publication
Mar 25, 2024
Category:
Practice Insight
by
Siddharth Kankaria
,
Alice Fleerackers
,
Edith Escalón
,
Erik Stengler
,
Clare Wilkinson
,
Tobias Kreutzer
Despite growing awareness of the need to bridge research and practice in science communication, methods of facilitating meaningful interactions between them remain elusive. This practice insight explores how teaching efforts can help to fill this gap. Drawing on case studies from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, India, and Mexico, six instructors offer examples of pedagogical strategies that they have found effective in bridging the two domains — such as fostering partnerships with local science communication practitioners, using dialogic and participatory approaches to build communities of learning and practice, encouraging reflexivity and epistemic humility, and drawing connections with local contexts.
Volume 23 • Issue 02 • 2024 • Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward (Connecting Science)
Date of publication
Dec 11, 2023
Category:
Editorial
by
Joseph Roche
,
Anne M. Land-Zandstra
,
Bruce V. Lewenstein
,
Luisa Massarani
This special issue focuses on the global landscape of teaching science communication in higher education. Following an open call, we selected seven papers with topics including the geographical distribution of science communication programmes, indicators of quality, programme analysis, self-reporting tools, interdisciplinarity, sustainability, and competencies. Collectively, these contributions highlight how the field has grown and increased in complexity, and highlights challenges faced by educators and the significance of addressing them within local and global contexts.
Volume 22 • Issue 06 • 2023 • Special Issue: Science communication in higher education: global perspectives on the teaching of science communication (Teaching Science Communication)
Date of publication
Dec 11, 2023
Category:
Article
by
Luisa Massarani
,
Heather Bray
,
Marina Joubert
,
Andy Ridgway
,
Joseph Roche
,
Fiona Smyth
,
Elizabeth Stevenson
,
Frans van Dam
,
Willian Vieira de Abreu
In the context of a special issue of this journal focused on teaching science communication, we present a map of the geographical distribution of 122 science communication teaching programmes from 31 countries around the world. This mapping study resulted from a collaboration between members of the PCST Teaching Forum and the research team at GlobalSCAPE, a research project funded by the European Commission to explore the global state of science communication. Our findings highlight the concentration of these programmes in the U.S.A. and Europe, and the dominance of English as the language of instruction. We ponder the causes and implications of the disparities in opportunities for studying science communication in other world regions and languages. The dearth of science communication educational pathways in developing countries may limit the professionalisation of the field, as well as research and evidence-based practice that is locally needed and relevant.
Volume 22 • Issue 06 • 2023 • Special Issue: Science communication in higher education: global perspectives on the teaching of science communication (Teaching Science Communication)
Date of publication
Dec 11, 2023
Category:
Essay
by
Brian Trench
Science communication education is fundamentally concerned with relations between and within communities, cultures and institutions. Through exploration of these relations, it develops understanding of how knowledge is produced, shared and validated. Science communication operates at the boundaries and intersections of disciplines in its professional practice and it analyses them in research and education. At its interdisciplinary best, science communication is a continuing exercise in reflexivity on science and its place in wider intellectual and public culture. From this “premise”, this essay reflects on the “promise” of bringing perspectives from humanities, social sciences and natural sciences to bear on science, the “pleasures” of science communication as “joyously interdisciplinary”, but also on the “problems” in fulfilling the promise and realising the pleasures. It closes with a “proposition” for giving interdisciplinarity a more prominent place in science communication education.
Volume 22 • Issue 06 • 2023 • Special Issue: Science communication in higher education: global perspectives on the teaching of science communication (Teaching Science Communication)
