We just received the advanced exemplar of a new book. You might include that in the usual LSE announcements of such events.
Bauer MW, R Shukla and N Allum (2012) The Culture of Science – how the public relates to science across the Globe, NY, Routledge (Routledge Series in Science, Technology and Society vol 15) 472pp ($95; ISBN13: 978-0-415-87369-7)
In November 2007, the Royal Society of London convened researchers from all continents to a workshop reviewing the research on public attitudes to science, commonly known as the public understanding of science. The books reports the outcome in 26 chapters: on longitudinal changes in public attitudes in the US, across Europe, in Bulgaria, Japan and China since the 1970s; on science literacy measurement and cross-national comparisons culminating in a proposal for a 'science culture index'.
Many sensitive topics are treated very differently in different contexts, which is the focus of a third section. All in all this book defines a new triple research agenda: a) a step change in working with the exiting global database, b) sophistication of data analysis, c) mobilisation of complementary data to map the societal conversation of science across the Globe.
