Public understanding of science and social studies of science: convergence or parallel paths?

KREIMER, PABLO

Science & You

Science & You

Lugar: Nancy; Año: 2015; p. 83 - 98

Despite their relative semantic proximity, the fields of PUS and SSS/STS[1] appear to acknowledge their origins in different traditions, types of practice and trajectories. My purpose in this article is to examine recent developments in both fields, observing the way in which they have been shaped in varying contexts and attempting to establish the extent to which they are converging toward a unified space of theory and practice, or whether each one operates relatively independently from the other. With this in mind, I provide a brief summary of the emergence of these fields in Europe, the United States and Latin America in order to identify the modulations characteristic of each context. I then go on to discuss the role played by PUS studies at two types of congress: the European Association for Social Studies of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Latin American Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology (ESOCITE). Finally, I present a number of conclusions. [1] I use the acronyms SSS (Social Studies of Science) and STS (Science and Technology Studies or Science, Technology and Society) interchangeably. The differences between these terms are not relevant for the purposes of this article. For a discussion of this matter, see Cutcliffe (2003), Sismondo (2004) and others.