Reflection on critical perspectives on science – Purpose of the assignment The purpose of this reflection essay is that you appropriate some of the concepts discussed in class on the relationship of social structures or constructs and the production and circulation of scientific knowledge. In other words, you are expected to develop a personal approach to the ways race, sex, gender, class, and geopolitics (possibly more than one of these at the same time) relate to the way science is produced and communicated. Your papers will be published in a course blog that all of us will be able to read, but only I will be able to edit. You will be practicing some of the skills that you will need for your final assignment. – Useful questions to guide your writing: 1. How have issues such as sex, race, gender, class, geopolitical location affected the production and communication of scientific knowledge? 2. What difference does the engagement with these issues make for science? In other words, what changes, what is better, worse, transformed, when these perspectives are taken into consideration? 3. Who benefits the most from taking these perspectives into consideration? Why is that important? – Learning objectives This assignment will allow you to exercise different skills: – Writing for broad audiences – Using different sources (2) in your writing – Working across different genres – Reflect on the relationship between science and society – What you have to do: Write a reflective essay using two (or more) different sources, one from our shared class readings and one that you find on your own. Format of the manuscript: clean word document including title, subtitles, and images where needed. I should be able to copy and paste from this document easily. Sources should be referenced properly in APA style, and images should be labeled and referenced by URL.
