Abstract
In a global environment characterised by the growing role of science and technology in our economic, social, and political lives, an international research agenda has arisen to measure and understand how science and technology are perceived and evaluated by the public. In 2010, the South African Social Attitudes Survey included 20 items to measure public attitudes towards science, knowledge about science, and sources of information about science. This household survey was administered to a representative, stratified, random sample of 3183 participants. The findings were analysed through a bivariate analysis, and here we report on South African attitudes towards science and technology, how these have changed between 1999 and 2010, and where South African science attitudes fit on the canvas of global science attitudes. The data reveal a complex and shifting relationship between attitudes of promise and reservation towards science in South Africa. In the international context, South Africa has a unique ‘fingerprint’ of public attitudes towards science. The strongest demographic variable impacting on attitude towards science was educational attainment, followed by age. Gender had no impact on science attitude. This broad overview also highlights some directions for further research to meet the growing academic and policy interest in the interface between the institutions of science and the public.
Highlights
Science and technology play a large and growing role in our economic, social and cultural lives
Increased complexity of the quantitative analysis, including multivariate regression analyses, can be informed by the findings of this paper. Differentiation by these demographic variables renders a number of stratified ‘publics’ within the broader South African public
Our analysis of public attitudes towards science was structured by these variables, with the aim of understanding how these different ‘publics’ feel about science
Summary
Science and technology play a large and growing role in our economic, social and cultural lives. There is a history of scholarship that seeks to measure and understand, largely through survey instruments and the analysis of survey data, the way in which knowledge of and attitudes to science are structured in societies – how they vary across demographics, across different aspects of science, and how the public responds to areas of scientific controversy such as nuclear energy, genetic modification, climate change and stem cell research Because these data have been collected for several decades – at least in Europe and the USA – the literature seeks to track changes in these knowledge and attitudinal structures over time, in order to understand the trajectories that shape the current and future role of science in culture and society. Further analysis drawing on our recent data sources will add further dimensions to this understanding by looking at data describing science knowledge and science communication in South Africa and by performing more in-depth statistical analyses
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