人的世界观与其在公共健康领域内科学知识间的文化差距

本文尝试对健康与卫生领域内的公众理解科学加以测度,并针对“文化差距模型”的有效性进行测试。测试前的自由回答式问卷调查是在印度一个宗教文化节日中进行的跨区域调查。调查对象有3484人,他们的回答被编码并输入电脑,建立了数据库。这些数据被用来测度目标人群对来自日常生活的5个科学概念形成的文化差距。在发展中国家,现代教育的正式体系成为了人们普遍的思想文化结构形成的决定性因素。在自然事物形成的科学结构与人们思想复杂性之间存在着文化差距。文中被调查的概念所体现出来的文化差距有着很大不同,这种差距是科学信息本质的一种功能。

Cultural Distance Between Peoples' Worldview and Scientific Knowledge in the Area of Public Health

The objective of the present paper is an attempt to measure the public understanding of science in the area of health and hygiene and test the efficacy of "cultural distance model". A pre-tested open-ended questionnaire was used for administering cross-sectional surveys at a religio-cultural festival in India. 3484 individuals were interviewed and responses were coded and entered to construct computer database. The data was used for determining the cultural distance of five scientific concepts from the quotidian life of the target population. In developing countries, the formal system of modern education operates as a strong determinant in shaping cultural structures of thoughts prevalent among the citizens. There exists a cultural distance between the scientific structure of configuring natural occurrences and peoples' complexity of thoughts. The distance varies significantly across the concepts that were subjected to the inspection and is a function of the nature of scientific information.