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2013 22: 110 originally published online 31 August 2011 Public Understanding of Science
Jinwoong Song, Minkyung Chung, Eunjeong Choi, Leekyoung Kim and Sook-Kyoung Cho
Korea
How to compare the social foundations of science culture: A trial with five cities in

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P U S
How to compare the social
foundations of science culture:
A trial with five cities in Korea
Jinwoong Song, Minkyung Chung, Eunjeong Choi
and Leekyoung Kim
Seoul National University, Republic of Korea
Sook-Kyoung Cho
Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, Republic of Korea
Abstract
Though there have been several indicator systems to monitor the status quo of science and technology
and of scientific literacy, few are especially designed for science culture, especially for its social dimension.
Furthermore there is little agreement on how to measure it. In a previous study, an indicator system, SCI
(Science Culture Indicators), had been developed to monitor the status quo of the science culture of a
nation at both individual and social dimensions. The purpose of this study was to explore a practical way
to measure and compare local cities social foundation of science culture by revising and standardizing the
social dimension of SCI and by applying it to five metropolitan cities in Korea. Despite some limits, the
results of this study appear not only to reflect the cities current situations but also to show the strength
and weakness of their social foundation of science culture.
Keywords
city, index, indicator, science culture, social foundation
1. Introduction
Over the last three decades, scientific literacy (SL) and public understanding of science (PUS)
have been central terms in formal and informal science education (e.g. Durant et al., 1989; DeBoer,
2000; Falk, 2001; Miller, 2004; Bauer et al., 2007). Science culture (SC), frequently used by sci-
ence communicators, has been also widely used with a meaning similar to that of SL or PUS, but
perhaps with a greater emphasis on science in social context (e.g. Godin and Gingras, 2000; Burns
et al., 2003). As the informal aspects of science education are getting more attention (e.g. Song
Corresponding author:
Jinwoong Song, Department of Physics Education, College of Education, Seoul National University, Sillim-dong,
Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-748, Republic of Korea.
Email: jwsong@snu.ac.kr
Article
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Song et al. 111
and Cho, 2004; Rennie, 2007), and the boundaries between science education, science communi-
cation, and PUS are becoming more overlapped (e.g. Stocklmayer et al., 2001; Treise and Weigold,
2002), the idea of SC (or scientific culture) also becomes a main concern of science educators.
Like SL and PUS, SC is rather loosely defined and often allowed various meanings (Godin
and Gingras, 2000; Burns et al., 2003). Nevertheless, SC can largely be grouped into the follow-
ing three types. First, SC can be considered as the features and values uniquely shared within the
scientific community. This sense of SC mainly focuses on rationality, logicality, universalism,
and others which are supposed to be the culture of the scientific community and vital in the
process of generating scientific knowledge (e.g. J egede, 1997). The scientific culture claimed in
The Two Cultures (Snow, 1959) and some process skills in school scientific inquiry (such as,
open-mindedness, objectivity, skepticism) would be good examples of this version of SC.
Second, SC can be regarded as the processes and products of linking science with society and
the public. This version of SC would be personal attitudes, understanding, and values toward
science in society and so on, more closely linked with PUS or SL (e.g. Shukla and Bauer, 2009).
The third kind of SC is to see science as a part of a culture, implying SC as life modes and social
environments related to science and technology (Godin and Gingras, 2000). This version of
interpretation, despite its rather broad scope, allows more attention to the social dimension of
SC and thus more room for socio-cultural perspectives and multi-faceted aims of science culture
and education (e.g. Corrigan et al., 2007; Roth, 2010).
As the importance of SC (including SL and PUS) has been widely recognized, various pro-
grams, projects, surveys, and funding for its promotion have also been increasingly developed
across the world (e.g. Edwards, 2004: Allum et al., 2008; Turner, 2008). For the promotion of
SC, countries often establish new national agencies or utilize existing institutions for more orga-
nized support of SC practice: such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science
in the US, the British Science Association in the UK, the Chinese Association for Science and
Technology in China, the J apan Science and Technology Agency in J apan, and the Korea
Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity (formerly known as the Korea
Science Foundation) in Korea. This increase of efforts and investments in SC has demanded a
need for effective monitoring systems. Along with this need, several science-related indicators
(e.g. the National Science Foundations Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) in the US, the
European Commissions Eurobarometer in the EU, J apanese Science and Technology Indicators
(STI) in J apan, and Relevance of Science Education (ROSE) in mostly European countries) have
been developed to monitor the status quo of science and technology (e.g. NISTEP, 2004; EC,
2005a, 2005b; J enkins and Pell, 2006; KSF, 2006; NSF, 2006a, 2006b; Schreiner and Sjoberg,
2006). With the exception of ROSE, however, these indicators are largely concerned with statis-
tical data on the national status quo related to science and technology in general, and do not
provide specific and systematic data for science culture.
On the other hand, there have been many studies to attempt to define (e.g. DeBoer, 2000;
Laugksch, 2000; Roth and Lee, 2002) and to measure (e.g. Laugksch and Spargo, 1996; Miller,
1998, 2004) SL or PUS. However, there has also been criticism that the existing indicators have
organizational and academic weaknesses (e.g. Bauer et al., 2000, 2007; Pardo and Calvo, 2002;
Kim, 2007). In addition, the aspects checked by some of the above indicators, including ROSE,
were mostly limited to the individual persons dimension of SC, leaving the social dimension of
SC untouched (e.g. Shukla and Bauer, 2009). Thus, as claimed by Bauer et al. (2007), there is a
need to develop indicators, hopefully a new indicator system, which can be used to monitor and
evaluate the status quo SC in society and individuals, and through which the efficacy of SC-related
policies, programs, and investments can be both effectively and systemically checked.
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112 Public Understanding of Science 22(1)
In a previous study, we developed an indicator system, called Science Culture Indicators (SCI),
which can be used to monitor a nations various aspects of personal literacy of science culture
(SCI-I: Science Culture Indicators for Individuals) and of social foundation of science culture
(SCI-S: Science Culture Indicators for Society) (Song et al., 2008).
Following the SCI framework, the present study aimed to explore a practical way to measure
and compare local cities social foundations of science culture by revising SCI-S into indicators
better suited for monitoring city-level SC, and applying them to five metropolitan cities in Korea
to compare those cities social foundations. The results are expected to provide information on the
strength and weakness of cities social foundations of SC, thus to help policy-makers to figure out
the priority for future investment and development.
2. Science Culture Indicators (SCI)
Along with the definition by Godin and Gingras (2000: 44) (i.e. the expression of all the modes
through which individuals and society appropriate science and technology), the main focus of
our current study, among a variety of other definitions (e.g. J egede, 1997; Solomon, 1997; Burns
et al., 2003), was a definition of SC as all modes and values of life which individuals and society
share in relation to science and technology. With this definition of SC, unlike other existing stud-
ies (e.g. SEI, Eurobarometer and STI for professional practitioners and/or the general public;
ROSE for school science), this study included science-related facets not only of the general public
but also of professional practitioners and of school science. The SCI is divided into two dimen-
sions: personal literacy of SC (individual dimension) and social foundation of SC (social dimen-
sion). Further, each dimension is divided into two modes: potential and practice. Thus, SCIs 2
2 structure consists of four areas (individual-potential, individual-practice, social-potential, and
social-practice). Here the relationships among the areas are of cyclic nature: that is, the potential
mode is to be the base of the practice mode, while the latter would lead the change of the former;
the individual dimension would be the base of the social dimension, while the latter would be the
foundation of the former. Each of those areas is divided into three area-specific categories. As a
result, the SCI system has twelve categories (see Table 1). Each category is also further divided
into subcategories, and likewise, subcategories into indicators. Each indicator contains items,
which are the units of data collection. With this structure, the individual dimension becomes SCI-I
(Science Culture Indicators for Individuals), while the social dimension becomes SCI-S (Science
Culture Indicators for Society). Since this paper focuses on SCI-S, the explanation of SCI-I can be
found elsewhere (Song et al., 2008; Song, 2010).
Table 1. Dimensions, modes, and categories within SCI.
Dimension Mode
Potential mode Practice mode
Individual dimension Opinion Learning
Interest Application
Understanding Participation
Social dimension Human Infrastructure Event
Physical Infrastructure Media
Institutional Infrastructure Civil Activity
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Song et al. 113
SCI-S (Science Culture Indicators for Society)
The overall structure of SCI-S is shown in the first three columns of Table 4 (shown later). The
social-potential area includes indicators that show the potential capacity of a society to contribute
to SC, i.e., indicators for Human, Physical, and Institutional infrastructures for SC. Human
Infrastructure is a key ingredient in the development of SC with the workforce and education as
important factors supporting and developing SC. Physical Infrastructure encompasses the
facilities for SC. Policies that support individual and societal performances of SC are the main
parts of Institutional Infrastructure. While physical infrastructure may be a tangible basis of SC,
institutional infrastructures are intangible supports for effective performance of facilities and their
workforce. Within Institutional Infrastructure, the subcategories are based on administrative
and financial policies of governments or companies. On the other hand, the social-practice area is
divided into Event, Media, and Civil Activity. The Event category is related to science
events such as science festivals, lectures, and exhibitions in which interactions between science
experts and the public would occur. The Media category includes categories of media (i.e. print
media, television and the internet) covering the science and technology (S&T) field. Finally,
within the Civil Activity category, the indicators are mainly about scientists and the publics
involvements in organized science activities, ranging from public S&T lectures to street demon-
strations over socio-scientific issues.
3. Developing a revised SCI-S for cities
Revising SCI-S into an SCI-S for Cities
As SCI-S had been developed to monitor SCs status quo within a nation, in order to apply it to a
city, the indicator system needed to be modified by replacing, removing, or adding indicators
based on city-level data availability, resulting in 49 indicators. For example, the indicator turn-
over rate of science teachers had to be removed due to its unavailability of data, while number
of S&T books published annually was counted from the biggest online bookshop, which was
keeping data of regional sales volumes of S&T books, instead of from all publishers in Korea.
To confirm the validity of the SCI-S revisions, we twice consulted with expert groups (11
members for the first and 6 for the second) working within the fields of science education, sci-
ence communication, and science studies. Among the 11, were 4 university academics, 3 research
staff at national institutions, 2 editorial members of a representative popular science magazine,
and 2 experienced science teachers; 8 hold doctorate degrees and 3 hold masters degrees.
Regardless of their academic training, all 11 had been actively participating for the past several
years in academic, policy-making, and practical activities related to SC. The second group was
formed out of the first, in particular from members of the university academic and national insti-
tution groups, all of whom were active in SC research activity. The first consultation was mainly
focused on the revision of the framework and indicators of SCI-S, while the second was on the
processes of weighting of relative importance and standardization of indicators.
Based on those consultations, 3 of 49 proposed indicators were removed owing to low levels of
agreement among the experts. In addition, some indicators were amended to become more rele-
vant to the available city-level data. Ultimately, the SCI-S for City was composed of 46 indicators,
of which 42 indicators achieved 100 percent agreement, and 4 indicators attained 89 percent
agreement on their inclusion by the experts. The complete list of indicators for SCI-S for City is
shown in the Online Appendix.
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114 Public Understanding of Science 22(1)
The Human Infrastructure category in the social-potential area consists of four subcategories:
Scientists & Engineers who participate in S&T activity, Science Culture Practitioners whose
job is mainly related to science popularization, Science Teachers who participate in science
education in schools, and Science Students who study science and will become participants of
SC in the future. Each subcategory consists of measurable workforce indicators related to the
status quo of SC in a city. The Physical Infrastructure category consists of three subcategories:
Facilities for R&D (R&D, research and development), Facilities for Science Culture, and
Facilities for Science Education. Institutional Infrastructure also comprises three subcatego-
ries: Administrative/Financial Policy for R&D, Administrative/Financial Policy for Science
Culture, and Administrative/Financial Policy for Science Education.
The Event category in the society-practice area consists of two subcategories: Science
Culture Festival and Lecture and Science Culture Program. Each subcategory comprises rep-
resentative and measurable indicators in the Korean context. The Media category consists of
three subcategories: Print Media, Television, and Internet. The Civil Activity category
comprises two subcategories: S&T Specialist Activity and General Public Activity.
As explained earlier, we could not include the annual number of S&T books and magazines
published owing to the manner of data accumulation by publishers. Instead, Print Media was
used and includes the numbers of regular S&T columns in local newspapers, of S&T books annu-
ally sold, and of regular subscribers to S&T magazines. Television is represented by the audience-
based rating of S&T programs and the number of regular S&T television programs in the city.
Since the internet is an especially active medium in Korea, we included Internet in the Media
category despite the difficulty of determining and collecting appropriate data. The Internet
subcategory is represented by the number of online memberships of notable S&T websites (in
this study, that of KOFAC, http://www.scienceall.com, the science-related website with the larg-
est membership in Korea) and of the subscribers of representative online science newspapers (in
this study, The Science Times, the internet newsletter published by KOFAC).
The Civil Activity category comprises two subcategories: S&T Specialist Activity and
General Public Activity. Here, the indicators are the number of memberships in S&T related
associations, either specialist (e.g. Korean Physical Society) or of the general public (e.g. Green
Korea, a national network of environmentalists), and the number of activities related to socio-
scientific issues, such as campaigns, workshops, demonstration assemblies, and so on. Because of
its importance as an indicator of voluntary activity, through expert consultation, Civil Activity was
given a high relative index of importance despite its small number of indicators.
Indexing of SCI-S for City by the Delphi method
Prior to comparing survey results from the cities, the Delphi method was used to index SCI-S for
City by determining the relative importance of areas, categories, subcategories and indicators.
Relative importance data were gathered from the opinions of the second group of experts. The
process of finding relative importance began from the area level to the subcategory level and then
in reverse, and this was repeated until agreement among the expert group was reached. The results
of assigning relative importance to SCI-S areas, categories, and subcategories are given in paren-
theses in Table 4.
The expert group also assigned a relative importance score of high (3 points), medium (2
points), or low (1 point) to each indicator to relatively weight each indicator. The formula to cal-
culate an indicators weight was
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Song et al. 115
Indicators weight=
Indicators average importance score
Sum of indicators average importance score in subcategory
Subsequently, a score for each indicator, with accuracy to one decimal point and with an interval
of 0.5, is determined by multiplying the indicators weight by the relative importance of the
subcategory, i.e.
Score per Indicator = Indicators weight Relative import aance of subcategory
Information on the scores of indicators in each subcategory is given in the Online Appendix,
while examples are presented in Table 2.
After completing the framework of SCI-S for City, we applied it to five cities in Korea and
gathered data from each of those cities. However, in order to create an index system which could
be used to compare among cities (or between different periods), standardization of raw data from
the cities was needed. For this purpose, we used an HDI (Human Development Index) standardiza-
tion method, through which standardized data are assigned a value between 0 and 1 (UNDP,
2007/2008). The formula to develop a standardized score from the measured, average, maximum,
and minimum values is
Standardized Score =
measured value minimum
maximum mini

mmum
where the maximum is the largest measured value added to the measured average value, and the
minimum is usually zero. Although, like in HDI standardization, the maximum is often calculated
based on accumulated data over a given period, since this study did not yet have any accumulated
data, the above method of calculating the maximum was adapted from the People Culture Index in
Korea (MCST, 2002) which had been also a newly developed index system. Then, city-specific
indexes for each indicator were calculated by multiplying the previously obtained score per indica-
tor by the standardized score for each city as
Index per Indicator = Score per Indicator Standardized S ccore
Table 2. Example of method used to determine an indicators weight and score per indicator.
Subcategory
(relative
importance)
Indicator Indicators average
relative importance
Indicators weight Score per Indicator
Scientists &
engineers (4)
# of scientists
& engineers in
university
2.3
2.3
2.3 2.6 2.1
0.33
+ +
=
4*0.33 = 1.32 1.5
# of scientists &
engineers in research
institute
2.6 2.6
2.3 2.6 2.1
0.37
+ +
=
4*0.37 = 1.48 1.5
# of scientists &
engineers in industry
2.1 2.1
2.3 2.6 2.1
0.30
+ +
=
4* 0.30 = 1.20 1
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116 Public Understanding of Science 22(1)
For an example of determining the city-specific indexes, see Table 3.
Finally, the total index for each city was calculated by summing all indicator indexes as
Science Culture Index of a City = Index per Indicator
Through this process of indexing, which would give an ideal maximum value of 100, not only can
we compare an individual citys science culture index at a specific time in history, but also, by
maintaining data gathering in an appropriate database, we can compare and monitor index changes
over a selected period of time.
4. Applying SCI-S for City to five metropolitan cities in Korea
Method
The SCI-S for City and its relative importance and indexing parameters were applied to the five
biggest Korean metropolitan cities: Seoul, Daejeon, Gwangju, Daegu, and Busan, each of which is
an independent local government and is responsible for its administration, education, and statistics.
The capital, Seoul, with a population of 10 million, situated in the northern part of South Korea, is
a major political, financial, and cultural center. Daejeon, situated in the middle of the country, has
a population of 1.5 million. Considered to be a city of science, it encompasses Daedeok Science
Town with more than 200 research institutions and the National Science Museum. Gwangju, situ-
ated in the southwest, has a population of 1.4 million and is regarded as a city of culture. Daegu,
located in the southeast, has a population of 2.5 million and is referred to as a city of the textile
industry. Busan is the second largest city in Korea with a population of 3.5 million, is a port city
situated on the southeast coast and is famous for its annual film festival.
The data from the cities were gathered between October and December 2008. For data gather-
ing, various statistics and databases at three different levels were used: that is national, regional,
and institutional levels. At the national level, databases from the Ministry of Education, Science
and Technology (MEST), Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity
(KOFAC), and the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (KOFST) were used
for the data which are usually kept for national administration purposes: number of scientists and
engineers (from MEST), number of visitors to science festivals (from KOFAC), and number of
activities about S&T issues (from KOFST). For the region level, data sets from metropolitan gov-
ernment offices and their education offices were mainly used: S&T budget (from metropolitan
governments) and number of science teachers (from metropolitan education offices). For the insti-
tutional level, data were drawn from related institutions, regional or independent: number of local
centers for science culture and programs (institutions in each city), number of S&T regular col-
umns in local newspapers (from each newspaper company), and number of S&T regular television
programs (from local cable television companies).
Table 3. Example of method of calculating city-specific Index per Indicator.
Indicator Score per
Indicator
Standardized Score Index per Indicator
A city B city A city B city
Number of scientists &
engineers in university
1.5 0.5 0.3 0.8 0.5
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Song et al. 117
Although much of the needed data could be obtained through the internet, in the forms of data-
bases or annual statistics, many of the data were often not readily available and thus, there was a
need for relevant collection, not from existing governmental or metropolitan statistics or databases,
but through direct contacts with, and assistance from, related institutions and organizations. Despite
laborious efforts of data collection, several indicators were unavailable for various reasons. That is,
due to the incomplete analysis of the data (e.g. students scholastic performance in science), due to
the nature of the database structure (e.g. number of science education researchers), or due to the
secret nature of company business (e.g. number of regular subscribers of S&T magazine only
relative ratios according to region were able to be obtained).
Finally, in order to fairly compare cities and to avoid potential influences by the overall size of
a city population, according to each indicators attribute, data were collected and compared on the
basis of different criteria: that is, per city or per million (or thousand) persons. (See the Online
Appendix) For example, data for indicators like number of officials for science culture and
number of academic institutes for science culture were counted per city, while data for indicators
like number of scientists and engineers in university and number of museums and centers for
informal science were counted per one million persons.
Results
Table 4 shows the overall results of applying SCI-S for City to the five cities, while the Online
Appendix provides the raw data for each indictor used to calculate each citys index score. Out of
a possible total score of 100, total SCI-S for City scores were 31.0 for Seoul, 50.4 for Daejeon, 25.9
for Gwangju, 25.0 for Daegu, and 28.9 for Busan. It is important to bear in mind that owing to the
unavailability of the data of some indicators the overall scores became smaller than those if all
possible data had been obtained. With this limit, in the Potential Mode area, Daejeon obtained the
highest score of 27.4 while Daegu had the lowest score of 13.9. In the Practice Mode area, Daejeon
again obtained the highest score of 22.9 while Gwangju had the lowest score of 10.6. Not surpris-
ingly, the data for Daejeon, regarded as a city of science, indicated its high activity in science
culture, at both potential and practice modes among the five cities tested and with the highest
overall index. This suggests that provision of a greater potential science foundation can contribute
to an increase in the practice of SC activities. In fact, the overall correlation between the potential
mode and the practice mode scores for the five cities was 0.95, suggesting that the potential mode
would be the determining factor for the practice of SC in society.
Among the six categories, Media showed the smallest difference among the cities, which may
reflect a situation in which various media practices are pretty similar across the small and densely
populated country. On the other hand, the biggest difference was shown in the Event category,
which would have a much bigger variance depending on the conditions and commitment of the
regions in regard to SC.
The distinctive difference between Daejeon and the rest of the cities was in the Human
Infrastructure category, and much of that difference might have contributed to differences in the
Event and Civil Activity indicators for Daejeon and other cities. Since Daejeon has a large concen-
tration of scientists and engineers in its Daedeok Science Town, the city has a greater opportunity
to host a variety of science-related events and activities with its abundant science-related resources,
frequently supported by the government research funding strategy of allocating 3 percent of the
labor cost of the fund to be used for PUS and Public Communication of Science and Technology.
In addition, the National Science Museum and Expo Science Park in Daejeon are two of the main
attractions for students in Korea.
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118 Public Understanding of Science 22(1)
On the other hand, Seoul only obtained moderate index scores across the categories and subcat-
egories. However, Seoul did obtain high scores in Physical Infrastructure, especially in Facilities
for Science Culture. This may be because Seoul is the site of several research institutions for sci-
ence communication and science education. Seouls Institutional Infrastructure was rather weak,
particularly in the subcategory of administrative and financial support for SC. The cities of
Gwangju and Daegu received the lowest overall index scores among the five cities assessed.
Table 4. Index scores by area, category, and subcategory for five Korean cities.
Area Category Subcategory Seoul Daejeon Gwangju Daegu Busan
Potential
Mode of Social
Dimension (55)

Human
Infrastructure
(20)
Sub-total 5.8 11.7 5.5 5.2 6.5
Scientists & Engineers (4) 1.3 2.8 0.7 0.5 0.5
Science Culture
Practitioners (7)
1.3 4.7 0.9 1.4 2.9
Science Teachers (5) 2.3 2.5 2.4 2.1 1.9
Science Students (4) 0.8 1.7 1.4 1.3 1.1
Physical
Infrastructure
(20)
Sub-total 8.5 8.6 5.4 4.0 5.2
Facilities for R&D (5) 1.6 3.3 1.7 1.1 1.1
Facilities for Science
Culture (9)
4.5 3.5 1.2 0.7 1.6
Facilities for Science
Education (6)
2.3 1.9 2.6 2.2 2.5
Institutional
Infrastructure
(15)
Sub-total 3.0 7.1 4.3 4.7 6.4
Administrative/Financial
Policy for R&D (4)
0.7 2.2 0.7 1.1 1.4
Administrative/Financial
Policy for Science
Culture (6)
0.5 2.2 2.1 2.1 2.5
Administrative/Financial
Policy for Science
Education (5)
1.8 2.7 1.5 1.5 2.5
Sub-total 17.3 27.4 15.2 13.9 18.1
Practice Mode of
Social Dimension
(45)
Event (20) Sub-total 7.1 13.3 3.9 3.6 5.3
Science Culture Festival
and Lecture (9)
2.7 5.9 2.5 2.4 2.1
Science Culture
Program (11)
4.4 7.5 1.4 1.1 3.2
Media (10) Sub-total 4.8 4.8 3.8 4.0 3.9
Print Media (3) 1.4 1.1 0.9 1.1 1.3
Television (3) 1.4 1.5 1.1 1.4 1.3
Internet (4) 2.1 2.2 1.7 1.4 1.3
Civil Activity
(15)
Sub-total 1.8 4.8 2.9 3.6 1.6
S&T Specialist Activity
(7)
NA NA NA NA NA
General Public Activity
(8)
1.8 4.8 3.0 3.6 1.6
Sub-total 13.7 22.9 10.6 11.1 10.7
Total 31.0 50.4 25.9 25.0 28.9
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Song et al. 119
Gwangju, traditionally known as a city of culture, obtained low scores in the Event and Media
categories. That may reflect the citys effort to promote artistic cultural activities, rather than sci-
entific activities. For example, the city focuses on the Gwangju Biennale, a world-famous inter-
national event that emphasizes modern art. This situation may be similar to those in Daegu and
Busan which both showed similar results on those indexes. For example, Daegus ongoing interna-
tional event, the Milano Project, focuses on textiles and clothing design, while Busan holds the
annual Busan International Film Festival. Thus, in contrast to Daegeon, which has an abundance
of science-related social activities, Gwangju, Daegu, and Busan have their own ongoing, large-
scale international events that attract the attention of the cities populations, deflecting resources
away from science-related events.
5. Discussion
Based on the SCI framework from a previous study, we developed an indicators system that shows
cities social foundations of SC and applied the new indicator system to five metropolitan cities,
thereby checking the new indexes applicability. Using the Delphi method and some formulas for
weighting the various parameters in the indexing process, we developed the SCI-S for City, which
provides concise and suitable indexing, using available city-level data. By converting indicators into
indexes, direct and easy comparisons between cities, which would provide information on each citys
SC at a glance, became possible. Applying SCI-S for City to the five Korean cities, we compared the
status quo of their SC and found that Daejeon, with highest scores in all categories, was the most
advanced in its social foundation of SC. On the basis of these results, we suggest that SCI-S for City
could be an efficient and systematic tool which would be useful in comparing SC between cities and
possibly between different moments in time in a city. In addition to the identified strength and weak-
ness of each citys social foundation of SC, the very high correlation (.95) between the potential and
the practice modes across the cities hints that (human, physical, and institutional) infrastructures of
SC are essential conditions for active practice of SC, although any causal relationship or in-depth
understanding of them would require further studies. This high correlation also suggests that the
current indicator system could be reduced into a simpler form with a smaller number of indicators.
In this and in previous studies, SC is rather widely defined, with an overall intention to include,
as well as PUS, components of professional S&T and school science education. This is based on
our belief that these three components are the main SC components of a society. The indicators
included in SCI-S for City were those for which data would be available at the city level. However,
data of some indicators in the end turned out to be unavailable for various reasons (e.g. the national
policy to keep closed the data of regional students scholastic performance, the way of collecting
data from its member associations by the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies).
The final results of the comparison among the cities were inevitably affected by this to some
extent, and thus these indicators need to be further revised or replaced by better ones. It is also true
that the processes undertaken in this study for the Delphi method of relative importance, indexing
and counting criteria (i.e. per city or per person) may not be the only or the best way to proceed.
With these limits, the indicators and data provided here are neither complete nor optimal, but rather
need to be taken as useful, efficient, and exemplary. It is also true that indicators in general may not
be universal across nations and cultures.
Despite the limits of its current form, the results of this study appear to reflect well the current
situations of and are able to show both the strength and weakness of cities foundations of science
culture. The results are expected to help in the drafting of guidelines for allocating resources to SC
policy-makers and to provide researchers with a good example for similar studies. In addition,
through its 2 2 structure, the SCI system would allow us to figure out the complex inner
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120 Public Understanding of Science 22(1)
relationships of SC, such as correlations among four areas (i.e. SCI-I Potential, SCI-I Practice,
SCI-S Potential, and SCI-S Practice) and their categories. Comparisons of SCI-S with other exist-
ing science indicator systems (like SEI, STI) or international comparative surveys (like TIMSS,
PISA, ROSE) would also give us understandings of various aspects of SC and SCs relationships
with other related factors.
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Author biographies
Jinwoong Song is Professor of Science Education at Seoul National University, with research
interests in: physics learning and cognition, science education in context, history of science educa-
tion and informal science education. He is currently exploring effective ways of bridging school
science education and informal science education and of monitoring the science culture of society
as well as individuals.
Minkyung Chung, Eunjeong Choi, and Leekyoung Kim are science teachers working at secondary
schools in Korea. All of them recently finished their MA degree in science education at Seoul
National University. For their masters theses, they carried out researches on different aspects of
students science culture literacy on the basis of Science Culture Indicators (SCI). After returning
to schools, they continue to work to improve students science culture literacy.
Sook-Kyoung Cho has been working for Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and
Creativity (formerly Korea Science Foundation) since 2001. Her doctoral thesis was about the
history of the Science Museum of London and the popularization of physical science during the
Victorian period. She is currently working on various governmental policies on science commu-
nication and science culture and working as a Science Committee member of the Public
Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) network. Online Appendix: SCI-S for cities
and the data from five metropolitan cities in Korea
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