Different images of science - a study of how science is constituted in exhibitions

Sammanfattning: Within the science and technology centre (STC) movement there exists explicit aims and ambitions to enhance visitors’ interest in and knowledge about science. Meanwhile, several researches question the choice of the scientific content in exhibitions when arguing that a too unproblematic view of science commonly is presented. But what images and aspects of science are visitors actually confronted with at STCs? How do staff members at STCs consider the scientific content and how do they choose what aspects of science to display in exhibitions? What ideas about visitors’ learning do staff members express and what consequences follow these when planning and constructing new exhibitions? And in what ways do sponsors affect the content and the design of exhibitions? The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what assumptions and factors affect the final content and design of exhibitions. This question is elucidated and explored from different perspectives, presented in four articles as well as in the different sections in this thesis. In a first phase, staff members at Nordic STCs were asked to consider to what extent they believe they display different aspects of science. The results suggest that the most common image was "the usefulness of science" which tends to display science in an unproblematic and single-dimensioned way. In order to explore what underlying assumptions and factors which affect how science is constituted, a second phase involved interviewing17 staff members who worked with planning and constructing new exhibitions. Furthermore, a third phase of the data collection comprised participant observation and a focus group interview. The results indicated that staff members’ ideas about the nature of science do not seem to have a decisive effect on what scientific aspects they choose to display in exhibitions. When it comes to staff members’ ideas about visitors’ learning, this seems to influence their choices of scientific aspects. The results imply that staff members tend to use only an experience-based approach to learning and do not consider what is known from the field of learning and informal settings and science education. Furthermore, the results suggest that sponsors may affect the final content and design of exhibitions both directly and indirectly. This means that sponsors may have explicit demands concerning the content, but also that staff members consider what they believe are views of the sponsors when planning and constructing new exhibitions.