Public Engagement With Science Among Religious Minorities: Lessons From COVID-19

Lea Taragin-Zeller,Yael Rozenblum,Ayelet Baram-Tsabari

doi:10.1177/1075547020962107

Lea Taragin-Zeller, Yael Rozenblum + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020962107

Copy DOI

Abstract

While scholars have highlighted how science communication reifies forms of structural inequality, especially race and gender, we examine the challenges science communication pose for religious minorities. Drawing on the disproportionate magnitude of COVID-19-related morbidity on Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews, we examined their processes of COVID-19 health decision making. Survey results show that both religious and health-related justifications were common for personal decisions, yet a disparity was found between the ways social distancing guidelines were perceived in the general education context compared with the religious context, signaling the importance for inclusive models of science communication that account for religious sensibilities and state-minority relations.

Highlights

As the COVID-19 pandemic shifted from East Asia to Europe and to North America, the public media began reporting the disproportionate
Whereas scholarship has mainly focused on strategies of integration of science in formal-educational or experimental settings among religious minorities (Asghar et al, 2014; Piew Loo, 2001), the naturalistic context of science communication has rarely been addressed (Jones et al, 2019; Jones et al, 2020). None of these studies have attempted to respond to the key question: How do religious minorities engage with/and learn about science in their everyday lives? Is conventional public health messaging effective when dealing with a minority population with specific cultural practices and religious beliefs? And, what are the limits of receptivity of science and health advice among specific minority groups?
The current study focuses on the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on Israel’s Haredi communities to examine engagement with science and health that characterizes COVID-19related decision making among religious minorities

Summary

Introduction

As the COVID-19 pandemic shifted from East Asia to Europe and to North America, the public media began reporting the disproportionate. The focus on the perceived conflict between religious teachings and science, and on evolution, has dominated literature and public discourse on science-religion conflicts (Bolger & Ecklund, 2018) These studies tend to amplify theological tensions while endorsing a “conflict narrative” (Evans & Evans 2008) that primarily characterizes people of faith in stark opposition to science (Carlisle et al, 2019; Chan, 2018; Elsdon-Baker, 2015). Others suggest that Americans operate either religious or scientific epistemologies (O’Brien & Noy, 2015), reflecting the perceived conflict between science and religion in U.S society (Ecklund, 2010) While these studies have tended to solely focus on theological tensions, Bolger and Ecklund (2018) recently suggested to pay attention to issues of bias and authority. Scholars have shown that conservative Protestants are not skeptical of science per se, but rather of scientists and their authority over truth (Bolger & Ecklund 2018; Evans, 2011)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion