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• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Are museums places where science and society can really engage in a dialogue? A positive example related to the rubbish emergency in the Campania region

  by Luigi Amodio

  Science musums and science centres are wonderful places to host, support and mediate the dialogue between science and society. In fact, they are a natural crossroad where scientists, general public, media and insitutions for formal and informal learning meet. During the recent political and health crisis concerning the rubbish treatment in the Italian region of Campania, the science centre "Città della Scienza" has promoted an unusual dialogue between citizens and scientists.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Dialogue in education

  by Lynn Uyen Tran

  What is the meaning of “dialogue” in education? Why is dialogue important in learning processes? Tran proposes a short review of the literature, starting with Vygotsky and ending with a new field of research in informal learning - conversations among the public visiting museums as a collaborative environment for learning.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Editorial

  A total society of knowledge

  by Pietro Greco

  The major Lisbon goal is to give Europe back the primacy as a society of knowledge. `Giving back' is a more appropriate term than `giving', as Europe long held that primacy in the past, and virtually as a monopoliser from the 17th century throughout the 19th. Then, Europe shared it with North America for a long portion of the 20th century.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Article

  Overseas internships as a vehicle for developing a meta-level awareness regarding science communication

  by Kayoko Nohara , Michael Norton , Miki Saijo , Osamu Kusakabe

  The overseas internship programme offered at Tokyo Institute of Technology as part of the science communication curriculum is highly significant, as it prompts graduate students to acquire new skills and awareness levels, including an enhanced meta-level understanding of the importance and complexity of human communications. The capacity to correlate and respond on-site in human interaction can be gradually cultivated during the internship as students experience diverse communication environments. Moreover, the exposure to different organisational, cultural and social environments helps develop a more international outlook. As a result of the initial experience described in this paper, TiTech has adopted internships as an important part of the educational tool-kit to produce scientists and engineers who can play an active role at the global level using their acquired technical knowledge and broad practical capabilities.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Dialogue is bliss

  by Giancarlo Sturloni

  The practice of dialogue does not erase the conflicts that can be found upon solid diverging interests. But conflicts are not forcedly a trauma. More then an impossible abolition of diversity, it is important to promote a practice that helps everybody to express their own point of view looking for socially sustainable solution between the parts. But according to Sturloni, «Even in that case: not a dialogue meant to achieve a utopian unitary view able to level all divergences, but to allow the expression of different perspectives and of legitimate interests. The final aim should be to make a choice shared as much as possible within the legal system of a democratic country».

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Letter

  Scientific careers and gender differences. A qualitative study

  by Daniele Gouthier , Federica Manzoli , Donato Ramani

  In Europe, much effort has been devoted to explore the causes of the decline in number of university matriculations of science students and to identify gender differences in career choice. Yet, the problem extends to the fulfillment of career plans: given their professional expectations and their attitudes when choosing a career, girls are much less likely to pursue scientific careers such as engineering or physics. Evidence of this is provided by the social research carried out within the framework of the GAPP project (Gender Awareness Participation Process). The Gapp project is intended to investigate differences between girls and boys in their perception of science careers and to propose a range of innovative and concrete participatory activities involving scientists, engineers and professionals from the public and private S&T sectors. In this letter, we report a synthesis of the results of the social research conducted as first step of the project: exploring how the perceptions of science professions affect interest, motivation and subject choice at school, at the university and consequently in their career.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Mar 21, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Not in front of the children! The controversies of science and science communication for children and youth

  by Luisa Massarani

  Dialogue in science communication is a necessity - everybody agrees on it - because science and technology issues are involved in so many aspects of the citizens life, and in so many cases can raise suspects, fears, worries or, on the contrary, expectations and hopes. But who are the possible interlocutors for scientists and policy-makers? Everybody, says Luisa Massarani, beginning with children and teenagers. Also in such controversial and sensitive issues like AIDS or GMO.

  Volume 7 • Issue 01 • 2008

• Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Editorial

  A Nobel prize to public science communication

  by Pietro Greco

  The Norwegian Nobel Committee has bestowed the 2007 Nobel Peace Price equally upon the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore, former vice-President of the United States of America, with the same motivation: «for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change».

  Volume 6 • Issue 04 • 2007

• Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

  Individuals, knowledge and governance in the 21st-century society

  by Andrea Cerroni

  The knowledge society is a new social species that, despite many uncertainties and some (old and new) ambiguities, is emerging on the horizon of the 21st century. Placed at the convergence of two long-term processes (society of individuals and knowledge society), it is characterised by the social-economic process of knowledge circulation, which can be divided into four fundamental phases (generation, institutionalisation, spreading and socialisation). The current situation also sees the traditional (modern) structure of knowledge being outdated by the convergence of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and neuro-cognitive technologies (NBIC). In the background, the need arises to cross the cultural frontier of modernity.

  Volume 6 • Issue 04 • 2007

• Date of publication Dec 21, 2007 Category: Commentary

  The knowledge society

  by Pietro Greco

  In 2007, global investments in R&D have increased by 7% on the previous year and have reached an absolute historical peak, exceeding for the first time the threshold of 1,100 billion dollars (calculated in the hypothesis of a purchasing power parity between the currencies). The world invests in scientific research and technological development 2.1% of the wealth it produces. At the same time, there has been an increase in the exchange of high added-knowledge value goods and high tech represents now the most dynamic sector of the world economy.

  Mass technologies and ignorance in the society of knowledge

  by Luciano Gallino

  Six critical remarks on science and the construction of the knowledge society

  by Cristiano Castelfranchi

  Individuals, knowledge and governance in the 21st-century society

  by Andrea Cerroni

  Knowledge, responsibility and culture: food for thought on science communication

  by Giancarlo Quaranta

  Volume 6 • Issue 04 • 2007