Indifferent, Dogmatic or Pragmatic: A Multi-Country Analysis of How Scientists View the Public and Public Engagement

How do scientists view the public and think about public engagement? In this article, weanalyze interview data from 205 scientists in the fields of biology and physics from fourcountries — India, Italy, UK, and the USA — to show that scientists do not perceivethe public as a monolithic entity. Three distinct kinds of publics were described by sci-entists, which we analytically characterize as “indifferent”, “dogmatic”, and “pragmatic”,and discuss in relation to major trends in extant literature. Our analysis showed that the re-spondents in our sample represented advanced and nuanced understandings of the public.Even though the deficit model still persists, and the preferred mode of public engagementremains science education and mostly (one-way) science communication, the purpose andfocusofeducationandcommunicationdifferaccordingtoscientists’orientations. Wealsoidentify discipline- and country-specific variations that warrant further investigation.