The Pandemic’s Social Ecosystem: Learning New Paths Toward Knowledge and Trust (February 8, 2021)

The Teach311 + COVID-19 Collective will host a panel on “The Pandemic’s Social Ecosystem: Learning New Paths Toward Knowledge and Trust” at the Association for the Advancement of Science’s virtual annual meeting on February 8 2021 (3pm EST). Teach311 + COVID-19 Collective teacher-scholars Ruselle Meade, Edna Bonhomme, Wonyong Park, Yeonsil Kang, and Megan Finn will be presenting and discussing research. Click here to view the programme.

Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic epitomizes the embattled public acceptance of scientific advice. Studies grounded in new global and feminist insights into the dilemma of mistrust of COVID-19 expertise show how different social environments propagate three key sources of scientific mistrust: poor language translation, biased data technologies, and weak science education. Mistrust in science is systemically grounded and key sources of mistrust at local, national, and international levels must be analyzed together without producing a knowledge hierarchy. Using research in science education, international science communication, and public health, this session will show how scientific knowledge and plural publics are interrelated through locally operating political, sociocultural, economic, ethical, and legal environments. Our studies of social ecosystems defined by COVID-19 expose how internationally accepted scientific expertise is received erratically and yields inconsistent results in behavioral choices. Local strategies for reducing sources of mistrust are most effective when designs for teaching, communicating, and research reflect commitments for transformational change. Topics to be discussed include how best to reestablish the trust needed to control COVID-19 through self-aware social ecosystems enriched with multiple paths for sharing knowledge.

Papers:

Translation and Trust in Science in Japan – Ruselle Meade, School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

Preparing School Science for the Next Disaster: Lessons from COVID-19 – Wonyong Park, Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Unsettling Inequalities and Big Data in the Age of Pandemics  – Edna Bonhomme, Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin, Germany

Related:

Translating COVID-19 and Japan: A Historical Reflection on the Social Standing of Scientists :: Ruselle Meade (United Kingdom)

Preparing school science for the next disaster: Lessons from COVID-19 – Wonyong Park, University of Oxford, UK

***

The Teach311 + COVID-19 Collective began in 2011 as a joint project of the Forum for the History of Science in Asia and the Society for the History of Technology Asia Network and is currently expanded in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Artifacts, Action, Knowledge) and Nanyang Technological University-Singapore.