Numeracy is not a luxury: numbers constantly factor into our daily lives. Yet adults in the United States have lower numeracy than adults in most other developed nations. While formal statistical training is effective, few adults receive it – and schools are a major contributor to the inequity we see among U.S. adults. That leaves news well-poised as a source of informal learning, given that news is a domain where adults regularly encounter quantitative content. Our transdisciplinary team of journalists and social scientists propose a research agenda for thinking about math and the news. We
Science permeates nearly every facet of human life and civilization. However, in an age of media oversaturation, it has been increasingly easier for pseudoscientific information to be disseminated among the masses, especially by those with a political agenda. In his book, ‘Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science’, author Dave Levitan creates a guidebook for spotting and debunking unscientific ideas in the political sphere, a vital tool in the Information Age.
This research brief highlights findings from the proof of concept pilot year of the Child Trends News Service project. It explores what we have learned regarding best practices for communicating with and engaging Latino parents through short messages on research-informed parenting practices. The findings are grounded in research that substantiates the need to amplify access to child development research, particularly among low-income Latino families; and in communication science research that demonstrates the value of the news media as an information source for child development research.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alicia TorresSelma CaalLuz GuerraAngela Rojas
Child Trends is a nonprofit organization focused on improving the lives of children and their families by conducting research and sharing the resulting knowledge with practitioners and the public. In this project, Child Trends will conduct research and development to launch a Child Trends News Service aimed at providing news reports that feature social science child-centric research. The resulting work is designed to improve outcomes for at-risk children, particularly Latinos, the largest and fastest-growing minority group among U.S. children. Working with a professional news syndication company, the Child Trends News Service will produce engaging reports for key news media outlets that feature the latest actionable social science research related to behaviors that help mitigate negative child outcomes associated with poverty, lack of education, violence, among other challenges. Child Trends will draw attention to the reports through social media and outreach to stakeholders. By airing these reports on local television news programs in English and Spanish, millions of people will have greater access to this information. This is early R&D work to demonstrate that local television stations will air these stories and to examine the audience impact—how does accessing this social science research through preferred media channels influence news audiences’ knowledge and attitudes toward specific social science research? The study will also delve deeper to better understand how news might, or might not, motivate behavioral change. The study will provide valuable lessons to the informal science education and the STEM communication science field.
The overarching aim of this project is to use commercial news to reach populations, especially Latinos, who have historically been underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers. The goals of the project are to:
* Leverage mass media news outlets to effectively communicate developments in social science research on child well-being and development to Latino audiences.
* Advance the field of informal STEM learning by exploring how the public interacts with actionable social science child research.
* Expand the reach and application of the news products through strategic collaborations with provider organizations serving at-risk Latino families; the child research and STEM fields; and other organizations working on Latino family issues.
Activities include the development and formative testing of the news service, the qualitative and quantitative testing of the news service's impact on audiences, and evaluation of the implementation of the project's components. The quantitative research, using a control group and treatment group, will work to establish preliminary evidence that the Child Trends News Service will result in changes in viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and intent to adopt behaviors related to child-centric social science research. The Child Trends' project team will be informed by an Advisory Board and Technical Working Group as well by working closely with Abriendo Puertas, the largest U.S. parenting education program for low-income Latino parents. Child Trends will partner with Ivanhoe Broadcast News to produce and distribute the materials. Group I&I Consultancy will evaluate the project. In year-two, Child Trends will produce a research brief on lessons learned and research outcome measures. The proposed research and development will be conducted over a two-year period; findings will inform ongoing service and additional research.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
In a brief text written in 1990, Gilles Deleuze took his friend Michel Foucault’s work as a starting point and spoke of new forces at work in society. The great systems masterfully described by Foucault as being related to “discipline” (family, factory, psychiatric hospital, prison, school), were all going through a crisis. On the other hand, the reforms advocated by ministers throughout the world (labour, welfare, education and health reforms) were nothing but ways to protract their anguish. Deleuze named “control society” the emerging configuration.
Before constructing a translation of scientific discourse in lay terms – and with this, calling forth the ghost of the public’s ignorance about science and technology – the operation which makes up the main task of specialized journalism in the coverage of related topics consists in the construction of a discourse of its own. However, this discourse frequently only amplifies and legitimates socially that which scientific laboratories and high tech companies offer as new, without critical opinions or contextualization. In addition to this, it is also generally characterized by linguistic
This document presents an overview of the quantitative survey data findings from the SL+ Equity Pathways in Informal Science Learning project. Further qualitative analysis on some of the open response data is yet to be completed. Findings are grouped into four areas: about the individuals taking part in the survey; their definitions and understanding of equity and related terms; their current equity practice; and their practices around equity work including reading, talking with colleagues and evaluation.
This Research & Practice Agenda is a synthesis of findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) partnership, a UK-US researcher-practitioner project, funded by the Science Learning+ Initiative. Activities included a survey administered in the UK and US with 134 ISL researchers and/or practitioners; workshops with 111 participants in both the UK and US; a literature review; and a joint UK/US workshop conducted in the UK. This set of activities generated a range of data, resources and raised questions, both research questions and questions of practice, which we have
This infographic reports findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project, a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ Phase 1 scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings: designed spaces (e.g. museums, zoos), community-based (e.g. afterschool clubs) and everyday science spaces (e.g. science media).
This briefing paper reports findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project, a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ Phase 1 scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings, including designed spaces (eg museums, zoos), community-based (e.g. afterschool clubs) and everyday science spaces (e.g. science media).
This briefing paper reports findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project,
a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings: designed spaces (e.g. museums, zoos), community-based (e.g. after school clubs) and everyday science spaces (e.g. science media).
This Science Learning+ project will develop a Youth Access & Equity Research & Practice Agenda, focusing on addressing equity issues for youth, ages 11-14, primarily from non-dominant backgrounds. The project will involve researchers and practitioners from three ISL settings/contexts, (1) Designed spaces, e.g., museums; (2) Community-based, e.g., afterschool clubs; and (3) Everyday science, e.g., science media. The goal of the agenda will be to advance scholarly understanding of equity issues in relation to these three contexts. Taking an ecological view of STEM learning as a sociocultural process of participation and transformation, the project will employ a Complex Adaptive System lens to document multiple pathways youth take (or not) within/across ISL settings over time, the impact these pathways have on learning and development, and their influence on ISL organizations themselves. These lenses will help us identify aspects of learning environments which shape youth access and development, and the value and impact of the equity ideas, tools and practices.