Science: perception and partecipation

In recent years, international studies and surveys on science and technology have shown that many countries are increasingly concerned with the lack of attractiveness that scientific careers have among young people and, generally speaking, with the insufficient diffusion of scientific culture. We frequently refer to this phenomenon as the crisis of scientific vocations, but this label recalls the image of a holy science, as lofty as it is distant from society. The planning and testing of educational and participative methodologies capable of contrasting this phenomenon can be effective only if it goes hand in hand with the goal of a deeper knowledge of the phenomenon itself, starting from teaching and communication aspects and influencing, in the imagination of each young person, the social significance of his or her professional choice.