In 2011 Pavia University celebrated its 650th birthday. This provided the opportunity to propose the Neverland project whose purpose was to overcome the division between formal and informal science education. A number of classes (various age groups) from a group of schools in the province of Pavia took part in the project. The University Museums…

The aim of this study is to examine secondary school students' images and conceptualisations about scientists by contextual data analysis, and to determine relationships between them. The respondents were 356 students attending 6th and 7th grades of secondary school in Duzce. Tests were conducted during 2013-2014 academic year. Students' images…

A gap has existed between the tools and processes of scientists working on anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and the technologies and curricula available to educators teaching the subject through student inquiry. Designing realistic scientific inquiry into AGCC poses a challenge because research on it relies on complex computer models,…

With the move toward mass higher education in Russia, academic degrees have lost much of their prestige. It is now necessary to look more closely at the reasons for this devaluation, to explore ways to optimize the training of researchers in graduate school programs, and to integrate Russia's system of science training into the European system.…

In this forum we engage in a dialogue with Allison Gonsalves's paper '"Physics and the girly girl--there is a contradiction somewhere": Doctoral students' positioning around discourses of gender and competence in physics'. In her paper Gonsalves uses a sociocultural approach to examine women doctoral students'…

This paper unpacks how social science doctorate-holders come to evaluate overall excellence in their PhD training programs based on their domain-specific assessments of aspects of their programs. Latent class analysis reveals that social scientists 6-10 years beyond their PhD evaluate the quality of their doctoral program with one of two…

Last year, when students at Ridgecrest Intermediate School in Palos Verdes, California, were asked to name scientists, their answers--Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Bill Nye the Science Guy--reflected a common perception. Most of the leading scientists they came up with were white, male, or dead. Although women and people of…

As part of "The Blue Marble" project, the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham, UK, have developed day-long, interdisciplinary, hands-on workshops for primary schools to introduce space technology and the role of the research scientist. The workshop activities introduce 5-11 year olds to the role of the UK space industry, show the…

Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe. It seeks to answer two important scientific questions: how did we get here and are we alone in the universe? Scientists begin by studying life on Earth and its limits. The discovery of extremophiles on Earth capable of surviving extremes encourages the…

The growing criticism of intensive agricultural practices that lead to a deterioration of natural resources and a decrease of biodiversity has progressively led to more environmental constraints being put on agricultural activities through an "ecologization" of agricultural policies. The aims of these policies have been to protect environmentally…

A DVD resource that provided a scientist's perspective on the use of animals in research and teaching was evaluated with a questionnaire that asked students' views pre and post their access to the resource. Thirty-nine secondary students (Y10-Y13) took part in three different teaching programmes that provided information about animal research and…

This study solicits views about the goals of science education from a range of stakeholders within the science education community and society. It also compares students' needs, expressed through stakeholder expectations, with the current learning situation of gymnasium graduates. The study uses a Delphi method to solicit views with 111…

Navigating academic work as well as career possibilities during and post-Ph.D. is challenging. To better understand these challenges, since 2010, we have investigated the experiences of early career scientists longitudinally using a range of qualitative data collection formats. For this study, we examined the experiences of four students and four…

Gender-related inequalities in scientific careers are widespread, evidenced by the attrition of women along the different stages of the promotion ladder. We studied the interwoven personal and professional trajectories of researchers in ecology and compared these trajectories between France and Norway. Given their differing welfare state policies…

Based on the EU FP 7 project, PROFILES, this article presents our findings from a three-round Delphi study conducted in Sweden that aimed at establishing a consensus on how science education should be developed for citizens to enhance civic scientific literacy. A total of 100 stakeholders (9th graders, school teachers, scientists, and science…