Europe and the crisis in scientific vocations

European Journal of Education

Volumn 40, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 361-366

  Convert, Bernard ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 29244487498     PISSN: 01418211     EISSN: 14653435     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-3435.2005.00233.x     Document Type: Review

References (9)

1. This phenomenon is less striking in Japan. The number of university students virtually doubled between 1970 (1,300,000) and 2003 (2,5003000), while the percentage of young people studying sciences increased slightly, but remained low (3.5% in 2003), and the percentage of engineering students declined from 21.1% to 17.8%, but it now includes a much larger number of women. (Source: MEXT statistics). In the case of (French-speaking) Canada, sociologists explicitly dispute the idea that there has been a decline in the interest of students there in the sciences. See Foisy M., Gingras Y., Sérigny J., Séguin S., Portrait statistique des effectifs étudiants en Sciences et en Génie au Québec (1970-2000), Bulletin de l'enseignement supérieur, October 2000.
2. In the US, the trend in the numbers of graduates obtaining Master's degrees has been as follows: if we take the 1970 figures as a base, representing 100, the index figure for the overall total of Master's graduates was 203 in 2000, with the individual levels being 59 for Masters in mathematics, 80 for physical sciences and science technologies, and 111 for biology. In contrast, the index figure for computer science was 1010, and that for medical occupations was 759. Non-scientific disciplines which have experienced very strong growth are business (index figure 448 in 2000) and law (index figure 401). (Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, Department of Education, USA).
3. European Commission (2002), Key data on education in Europe 2002, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Figure 4, Chapter F-5.
4. On the other hand, if we are to believe the opinion polls, at least in France, the image of science and of science-based occupations has not really suffered as a result of the 'damage' caused by progress in the past 15 years. See Boy, D. (1999), Le progrès en procès, Paris, Presses de la Renaissance.
5. In the case of Italy, reference is made to Teresa Longo's book: Longo, T. (2003), Scienze, un mito in declino? La crisi delle iscrizioni alle Facoltà scientifiche: Italia, Francia, sguardo internazionale, Stamperia Editoriale Pisania.
6. Francine Vaniscotte sees this as a specific feature of the 'German type' of education. See Vaniscotte, F. (1996), Les Ecoles de l'Europe: Systèmes éducatifs et dimension européenne, Paris, INRP.
7. Longo, Les Ecoles de l'Europe: Systèmes éducatifs et dimension européenne, op. cit., p. 18.
8. See also Vaniscotte, F. (1996), Les Ecoles de l'Europe: Systèmes éducatifs et dimension européenne., Paris, INRP.
9. The media, inclined as they are as a result of their conditioning to celebrate the power of events and to take social phenomena at face value, overestimate the importance of promotional measures designed to boost the image of science. This is how the French newspaper Le Monde (29 January 2005) came to attribute the increase in enrolments in physics faculties in Germany to the organisation of a Year of Physics in that country in 2000. Yet statistics show that physics enrolments in Germany had already begun to increase in 1998. See Troendle, G. (2004), Mapping Physics Students in Europe, Mulhouse, European Physical Society.