Pepka Boyadjieva

Public Knowledge of and Attitudes to Science: Alternative Measures That May End the “Science War”:

Research on the public understanding of science has measured knowledge as acquaintance with scientific facts and methods and attitudes as evaluations of societal consequences of science and technology. The authors propose alternative concepts and measures: knowledge of the workings of scientific institutions and attitudes to the nature of science. The viability, reliability, and validity of the new measures are demonstrated on British and Bulgarian data. The instrument consists of twenty items and takes ten to fifteen minutes to apply. Differences in the representation of science are reported between the British and Bulgarian young elite, between the elite and the public in Bulgaria, between natural and social science students, and between beginners and advanced students in Britain. The use of these measures will extend the scope of science indicator measures used by the European Commission and the National Science Foundation, help the assessment of the socialization in university training, and may even contribute to the peace process in the “science wars.”

Long-term trends in the public representation of science across the 'iron curtain' 1946-1995

This paper compares changing patterns of science news over a period of 50 years. The study analyses a biannual corpus of 2800 news articles in Britain (the Daily Telegraph) and 5800 in Bulgaria (Rabotnichesko Delo), and shows divergent and convergent trends. Britain carries considerably more science news than Bulgaria all through the period, while the coverage shows parallel swings: increasing intensity during the 1950s, a turning point in the early 1960s, declining into the 1970s, and rising again in the 1980s and 1990s. Media coverage in both countries shows similar swings in public appeal. The trends in the medicalization of science news, the reporting of controversy and the evaluation of science diverge in the two contexts. The paper concludes with speculative explanations of these results. Similarities and differences in these long-term trends point to common factors and specific differences at work on either side of the (former) ‘Iron Curtain’.

The image of the scientist and its functions

This study is an attempt to reveal the historical roots of the idealized image of the scientist, and its functions for the scientific community. The analysis is based on historical excursions into important periods of the development of science. The evidence reveals the specific ways and means of the idealization of the image of the scientist, the importance of this ideal for the social recognition of science, and the establishment and functioning of the scientific community. The image is also revealed by empirical data, i.e. content analysis of essays written by a sample of Bulgarian high-school students. The students shared representation comprises idealized elements. The historical analysis and the empirical data show that the idealized image of the scientist has become a means for recruitment to the scientific community and for regulating its relations with other social communities.

Citizenship education as an instrument for strengthening the state's supremacy: an apparent paradox?

This paper focuses on the overt and tacit role of the state and other stakeholders in defining objectives, concepts and approaches to citizenship education. It suggests a new approach for understanding citizenship education based on the assumption that trans-rational dimensions of human existence – interests, institutional culture, and traditions – are not just external environment, influenced by citizenship education, but they are imbedded in its contents, character and dynamics. This approach is summed up by the metaphor of ‘battle’, since citizenship education is revealed not as a pre-given univocal entity but as a developing matter that results from social combats among different stakeholders. It is argued that there is a common tendency in different countries for the state to take over the citizenship education advocating ‘disciplinary citizenship’. Thus, although there are some positive trends in citizenship formal education in the different European post-communist and post-authoritarian countries, this education does not necessarily function as an effective instrument for building genuine citizenship ethos. The paper claims that there is a need for substantial changes in the citizenship education practice and that its development should be based on creating institutional premises for ‘active citizenship’. The latter will help schools to overcome the alienation of students from studying. In order to get rid of its deep crisis the contemporary school needs the transformative impetus from citizenship education which in turn will get at least one mighty stakeholder in its advancement.

Dynamics of Inequalities in Access to Higher Education: Bulgaria in a Comparative Perspective.

This paper aims at studying the dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education (HE) both in a historical and a comparative perspective. It uses Bulgaria as a case study and places it among five other countries such as Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The adopted approach differentiates between equity in HE and inequalities in access to HE, and stresses the qualitative side of inequalities. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey (2006–2010), complemented by data from EUROSTUDENT III (2007). It is argued that, despite the expansion of HE before and especially after 1989, Bulgaria is among the countries where inequality in access to HE caused by socio-economic disadvantages is most salient. In general, our findings lend support to the effectively maintained inequalities hypothesis. The capability approach is applied in the analysis of these changes inasmuch as it provides a social justice framework for conceptualizing and evaluating inequalities, including taking into account their qualitative side.

Between Inclusion and Fairness: Social Justice Perspective to Participation in Adult Education.

The article claims that equity is an indispensable dimension of the widening of access to adult education. Building on the understanding of social justice in adult education as a complex phenomenon, two indicators are developed: an index of inclusion and an index of fairness in participation in adult education. The article analyses social justice separately in formal and nonformal education for two social groups—people with low and high education. Using data from the Adult Education Survey from 2007 and 2011 for 25 countries, it is shown that in most of the countries, there are signs of improvement in the fairness aspect of social justice as a result of a decrease in the overrepresentation of people with high education and in the underrepresentation of people with low education. However, the inclusion of people with low education in adult education remains considerable lower in comparison with the inclusion of people with high education.

Lifelong Learning as an Emancipation Process: A Capability Approach

The chapter offers a theoretical outline of the heuristic potential of the capability approach in conceptualizing lifelong learning and tests the capacity of this approach to guide empirical studies on lifelong learning. It argues that the capability approach provides a theoretical framework for the understanding of lifelong learning as an agency process which is embedded in different social and institutional contexts, for grasping its different meanings for individuals and society and for its critical evaluation against the background of important values, such as justice, freedom and identity development. Drawing on data from the Adult Education Survey (2007), the chapter suggests an index of fairness in participation in adult education and explores various meanings of adult education and obstacles to participation in it.

Institutional Diversity and Graduate Employability

Recently the aim of enhancing graduate employability has been constantly on the European agenda and has been defined as one of the priorities of higher education (London Communique, 2007; Bucharest Communique, 2012).

Rethinking Missions and Values of Higher Education

Nowadays, HEIs throughout the world face challenges that interfere not only with their functioning but also with their very identity as institutions. These are challenges stemming from the changed context both in society as a whole, in science and in the wider realm of education. Tapper and Palfreyman (2000) define the main problems facing contemporary universities as the three ‘Ms’: marketization, massification, and managerialism. The three ‘Ms’ create a completely new situation in higher education because they “attack” the traditional essence and founding principles of the university.

The Bulgarian educational system and gender segregation in the labour market

ABSTRACT School-to-work transitions are embedded in the institutional structures of educational systems. In particular, vocational education has been linked to greater horizontal gender segregation in employment. Similarly, research on higher education has uncovered how stratification at the tertiary level can promote gender segregation in the labour market. This paper investigates how gender typical employment is conditioned by the institutional features of the educational system in Bulgaria. Despite the post-socialist transformations of Bulgarias educational system and its labour market, horizontal gender segregation has remained rather moderate from an international perspective. We use data from a 2012 nationally representative survey. We find that the educational system shapes the gendered occupational trajectories for men but it does not hold the same explanatory power for women. Neither vocational nor higher education has a significant effect for women. In contrast, men with vocational education are more likely to work in male-typed occupations and, in line with the literature, higher education steers men toward gender mixed and a-typical occupations. Our study points to the importance of educational institutional factors in shaping gender (a)-typical career paths. The Bulgarian case, in particular, offers insights into the mechanisms that can potentially decrease horizontal gender segregation in the labour market.