Hi Bella,
Thanks to you for replying (and those who replied off-list). Well in
honesty this was my suspicion but I guess I wanted to hear it from the
mouths of others before going off on one in my research.
I agree with you completely about the culture change within research as
to the value of public engagement. However, my own work is veering
towards policy-making and I hope to be able to draw together and
critique some of the disparate approaches towards the role of
individuals in environmental management via pro-environmental
behaviours. It seems most (all?) of the theories ultimately come down to
knowledge deficit (with some sociological enabling thrown in to remove
barriers) and the idea of challenging the normative narrative of science
as the powerful authority on the environment and 'right' way to approach
it seems largely absent. I've only really found one approach that
attacks the issue from a different perspective (that of social justice)
but sadly I've yet to see how the theory can be put into practice. More
reading required there.
Pam
On 13/06/2016 08:53, Bella Williams wrote:
> Hi Pamela,
>
> My view from my (currently very small) corner of science communication and policy:
>
> I'm not sure whether this is a resurgence or whether the deficit model never went away. Ten years ago motivations for engaging with the public among natural scientists were concerned with addressing misconceptions and educating, and I believe that they still are today.
>
> For me the change around two way engagement came with developing strategies to enable this, and investment and research into effective science communication. We cannot be all things and while natural scientists may be effective presenters, unless they have taken the jump into science communication, they still position themselves as scientists and take a science-centric, positivist view of the world which is it difficult to step outside of. The main motivation for communicating may be 'to inform the public' on a key issue, and it should be the role of the communications specialists to help them think through the most effective way of doing this. Perhaps there is a time and a place for 'educating', but we need to have realistic expectations about what it is likely to achieve.
>
> The recent AAAS study was interesting for highlighting the continuation of the deficit model clearly, but the impacts of all the work undertaken to develop science engagement over the past 16 years have been very real in strategic terms. The sector has professionalised and scientific institutions now take public engagement much more seriously, there are fewer institutional and managerial blocks in terms of science communication and engagement being viewed as 'time wasting', and the connected issue that scientists who were good communicators or in the public eye were viewed as compensating for a poor research record has faded.
>
> Sounds like a really interesting PhD. Good luck with it.
>
> Bella
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pamela Buchan
> Sent: 11 June 2016 21:31
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [PSCI-COM] Returning to the deficit model
>
> Hi all,
>
> Some of you know that since leaving the BSA I've embarked on a PhD at Exeter Uni looking at public engagement with marine conservation. I'm reading lots about citizenship, psychological theories of behaviour and values and public perceptions. There are a number of researchers working on models of behaviour for marine and more general environmental conservation that bring together factors you would expect like knowledge, motivation, capacity due to socio-economic circumstances etc.
>
> What I'm emailing about is to discuss the resurgence of the deficit model in subject specific research being led by natural scientists (as opposed to social scientists or those who are specialists in science communication/public engagement). Whilst I accept and agree that knowledge can be a significant barrier to action, I am seeing a strong leaning towards deficit model (in all but name) in much of the research that I am reading. I wondered if anyone might be interested in sharing their opinions about that. Coming from a decade in public engagement this feels like a step back and indeed my human geography/philosophy of science reading is taking me much further in the other direction in regards to power and whose voices are legitimate in setting the agenda in the first place.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Pam
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> psci-com how-to:
> Once subscribed, send emails for the list to [log in to unmask] If not subscribed, either subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com or send reqests for items to be posted on your behalf to [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe (or silence messages while away) send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets)
>
> • signoff psci-com (to leave the list)
> • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages)
>
> Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
> For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
> For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> psci-com how-to:
> Once subscribed, send emails for the list to [log in to unmask] If not subscribed, either subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com or send reqests for items to be posted on your behalf to [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe (or silence messages while away) send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets)
>
> • signoff psci-com (to leave the list)
> • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday)
> • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages)
>
> Contact list owner at [log in to unmask]
> Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print
>
> **********************************************************************
**********************************************************************
psci-com how-to:
Once subscribed, send emails for the list to [log in to unmask] If not subscribed, either subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com or send reqests for items to be posted on your behalf to [log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe (or silence messages while away) send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets)
• signoff psci-com (to leave the list)
• set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday)
• set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages)
Contact list owner at [log in to unmask]
Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print
**********************************************************************
|
