Social Studies of Science

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Mexican Adolescents' Image of the Scientist

Maria Luisa Rodriguez Sala de Gómezgil
Social Studies of Science 1975 5: 355
DOI: 10.1177/030631277500500306

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 355

Mexican Adolescents’ Image of the Scientist

Maria Luisa Rodriguez Sala de Gómezgil

This paper presents some results from a national study designed to investigate
what ’image’ Mexican adolescent students have of science and of scientists. The
complete study involved a sample of 7393 students from both state and private
Secondary and Preparatoryl schools. The schools were in the Federal District
(Mexico City and surroundings), and in a number of other cities which, because of
their geographic location and their degree of socio-economic development, we
have taken to be representative of the different parts of the country. The sample
was selected on the basis of a simple stratification, with a representative percen-

tage of students in each grade. In the Federal District sample (on which this paper
is based), there were 3428 young people at middle-level grade (2415 in state and
1013 in private schools), and 1935 in Preparatory schools, or at pre-university
level (1526 in state and 409 in private schools).

We used two kinds of questionnaires. The first (leading to a mainly qualitative

analysis) followed the technique of Mead and Metraux:2it consisted essentially of
open-ended questions. Each student was asked to write a brief essay in response
to this incomplete phrase:

When I think of a scientist I have in mind the following:

A second opinion was also obtained from this incomplete phrase :-

Author’s address: Institute of Social Research, National Autonomous University

of Mexico, Torre de Humanidades 5° PISO, Cuidad Universitaria, Coyoacan 20,
D.F., Mexico.
1 The
Preparatory schools in Mexico are intermediate between the Secondary
schools and the Universities: they prepare students for University entrance.
2
Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux, ’The Image of the Scientist among
High-School Students’, in B. Barber and W. Hirsch (eds.), The Sociology of
Science (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), 230-46.

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356

If I were ever a scientist I would like to do the following:

and this second ’question’ was completed with :-
As was the case of (name a scientist whose life and work were, in your
opinion, very interesting).

We analyzed the essays elicited by the first phrase to obtain an approximate

’image’: it was a kind of ’compound image’, or collage - as would be produced by
superimposing a number of photographs, one on top of the other, to produce a
composite effect. Each phrase in every essay was grouped within a general theme,
and all those themes included in the final draft represent a family of phrases (or
’answers’) which were used in a number of different essays. As in the work of
Mead and M6traux, we mtegrated both a ’positive image’ and a ’negative image’,
separating, in each essay, the ’positive’ and ’negative’ phrases, and ’summing’ them
separately.

Our second questionnaire used a completely different technique based on a

differential semantic scale.3 Such a scale is formed by choosing some ’concept’
this is to be judged or characterized, and a range of elements by which thatt
judgment can be expressed. For the ’concept’, we used the names of a number of
occupations, including those of scientists; for the scalar elements, we chose
certain adjectives by which the student could characterize the various occupa-
tions. These adjectives were chosen to give the student a series of bi-polar
choices,4 and their selection required a preliminary stage in which a representative
sample of young people was interviewed. We chose the attributes that the
adolescent students themselves mentioned in these interviews. The list was com-
pleted with adjectives derived from the mmimum requirements necessary for the
pursuit of certain courses of study, as laid out in a number of university careers
programmes. The final scale had 31 items, including adjectives describing physical,
psychological and social attributes. The occupations to be assessed on this scale
were: Scientist, Artist, Clerk, Physician, Engineer and Lawyer. (In this paper, we
will only consider the responses for the first thiee occupations.)
Combining the results from these two techniques, we obtain an integrated
image, of both science and the scientist. This paper presents an approximation
which allows an initial evaluation of the project, and indicates the nature of the
results to be presented in the full report of the whole study.

3 C. E.
Osgood, G. J. Suci and P. H. Tannenbaum, The Measurement of
Meaning (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1957).
4 Students were asked to rate each
adjective, in relation to the given concept,
either ’positive’ (i.e., relevant to the concept, and correct), ’negative’ (i.e., rele-
vant but incorrect) or ’neutral’ (i.e., inapplicable to the concept). Percentage
’scores’ were deduced according to the proportion of responses falling into these
three categories.

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THE IMAGE OF THE SCIENTIST

Both positive and negative images were derived from the student’s essays by
the following procedure. We analyzed the frequency with which certam phrases
recurred in these essays, and found great similarities in students’ images - with
little variation accordmg to a student’s age, sex, academic level or social position.
Once we had discounted the effects of such variables, we considered what type of
characteristics were expressed m each of these recurrent images. We found that, in
the positive images, mtellectual characteristics account for 57 per cent of the
responses, followed by (m decreasing order of importance) social and religious
features (27 per cent), personality traits (10 per cent) and physical traits (6 per
cent). For the negative image, the corresponding figures were: personality traits
(71 per cent), social (15 per cent) and intellectual (14 per cent).
In integrating the texts, each group of traits was identified, in turn, by the
phrases used in the essays, and the order in which each characteristic appears in
the composite text corresponds with the frequency with which it recurred in the
set of essays (the commonest first, the least-used last).

Positive Image

This image was formulated from the integration of 5171 different ’answers’:55
The scientist is a person who serves humanity, society, the community and his
fellow-beings. He works for the good of humanity, his country, the world. He
tries to seek advancement for humanity to rid the world of hunger as well as
poverty and suffering. He is a reformer because he is constantly seeking
reforms to help the human race. He is the key to the discovery of a marvellous
world since he helps man to evolve. He is a person who works the whole day
on scientific research. He has studied very hard and therefore he is properly
trained, but in spite of this, he continues to study, above all in the field of
science. His life is filled with science and books, he devotes himself completely
to investigation, to experiments and to observation, and he devotes himself to
science to discover truths about man and about humanity. He is an individual
of great intelligence and with a high intellectual capacity. He very easily
understands all the problems that arise and can solve anything related to his
field. He has initiative. He works in a laboratory surrounded by complicated
mstruments, trying to discover, to invent or to experiment with something.
Sometimes he has someone to help him, sometimes he works alone. He is an
elderly person or an old person with grey hair. He is a seeker of truth, a person
who wants to discover the secrets of nature and who is interested in the
natural phenomena of the universe. He preferably works in exact sciences or in
natural sciences; he researches so that his profession will advance and tries to
see that science is universal. He has devoted himself to science very willingly,
with affection, responsibility, curiosity and constancy, without thinking of
himself, without any personal interests, like a priest who renounced the world,
forgetting about base things in life. I would like to become a scientist and have
one in the family. He devotes himself to large enterprises such as space
activities, and others (astronauts) are admired, whereas he is not thanked. The

5
This number differs from the sample interviewed (5315) since it refers to
answers, and not to persons. Many essays contained more than one ’image
phrase’: in these cases each individual phrase was counted as an independent
’answer’.

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358

scientist is the fountain of wisdom; he can do everything, nothing is impossible

for him. Thanks to the scientist, there is prosperity; if it were not for him we
would still be in the stone age; we must be thankful, we must admire him
since, thanks to him, we have comfort. The scientist has a ’future’, ’economic
progress’ and a lot of money; he can earn well, have ’enough to live on’; he
becomes very prosperous in life. He is methodical, responsible, decisive,
orderly and serious. I would like to be like him to help my country with
research. He must be very determined in his work, because this is the only way
he can get what he is aiming at. This is the reason why he sometimes has to
make sacrifices, go through difficult times, and be dedicated. He is a person
who wears glasses and a white coat. He is a clean person and cares about his
appearance. He may be a man or a woman. Anybody can be a scientist since
he is a normal person, except that one has to wish to be one. One should
encourage and help whoever wants to be a scientist. He is an ordinary person
with little hair. His personality is interesting, he has a pleasant appearance and
it would be pleasant to talk to one, he likes to discuss. He deserves respect
since he sacrifices his life for knowledge; he is the greatest and best thing on
earth. He is a happy person because of what he has achieved and because he
can help others, he tries to seek happiness through his knowledge. He is young
or mature; he can be unmarried or with a family.

Negative Image

This image was formulated from the negative aspects mentioned in a total of
345 ’answers’. Most essays included both positive and negative characteristics:
there were few cases in which the image was entirely (or even predominantly)
negative:
The scientist is a withdrawn person, timid and serious, who keeps away from
his fellow-beings; he is enclosed in his own world, with few human relation-
ships, boring, does not like to go to parties and does not like conversation and
is selfish due to lack of social relationships. He is careless about his appearance
and he is dirty. He is a madman; he is not a normal person because he has lost
his wits due to so much studying. Studies have traumatized him; he may have
a sick mind and do atrocious things in the world. He has an evil temper,
without feelings; he is a despot and gets annoyed by the mistakes of his
colleagues or students; he is cold and hard, not very affectionate and not kind.
He seeks his own profit, prestige and fame; he studies to become rich. He is
eccentric, strange and does not like to be bothered. He has harmed humanity;
his discoveries have produced negative effects for humanity and they are
leading to its destruction. Scientists have sick minds when they study absurd
things instead of helping towards progress. His discoveries destroy other
poorer peoples (Vietnam, Napalm, H-bomb). Scientists are only wanted (in the
USA) to invent bombs that destroy humanity. These scientists and their bosses
deserve the worst of deaths. The scientist is vain, believes he knows everything
and locks himself up in his own knowledge. As far as he is concerned, others
are not worth anything. Scientists are exploited by others who steal their
knowledge. He lives alone and knows nothing about life because he is good for
nothing if it is not related to science. We are given a deformed image of the
scientist through mass media. I do not envy him. In our country (Mexico) such
persons are not given any importance.

Predominantly, the composite image was positive (only 6 per cent of the
component images were unambiguously negative); and no significant differences
in the tendency to view the scientist positively were found when the responses
were analyzed in terms of age, sex, academic level or social position. In both

private and state schools, there were many students with interesting ideas, and the

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to express them clearly.6 Our analysis has produced no evidence that a

ability
Mexican adolescent’s image of the scientist is influenced by his socio-economic
background.

ATTRIBUTES OF THE SCIENTIST

The second technique completes the image of the scientist by allowing us to

assess the attributes which these adolescents ascribe to scientists (in comparison
with other professions).
In this initial approximation, there were no notable differences with respect to
either the sex, age, or level and type of schooling, of the student. In general, the
image is that, in most cases, adolescents eliminated physical or ’somatic’ charac-
tory), more attributes are given (i.e. more adjectives are noted positively on the
scale), denoting more assurance and precision in the process of abstraction
involved in the use of adjectives. The most noticeable feature of the integrated
image is that, in most cases, adolescents eliminated physical or ’somantic’ charac-
teristics (morphological and physiological), and preferred psychological and social
ones. This collective judgment shows a fair evaluation of the professions where,

evidently, an intellectual activity predommates over a physical one: for a mason, a

labourer or a miner, somatic characteristics would obviously be judged more
important.
The characteristics mainly chosen by the adolescents in our Federal District
sample were, in decreasing order of importance (a) has a good memory; (b) is
organized; (c) active; (d) creative; (e) has general culture; (f) constant; (g) has
manual dexterity; (h) analytical; (i) polite; (j) patient; (k) perceptive; (1) calm; (m)
adaptable in his habits; (n) optimistic; (o) sociable; (p) takes care of his appear-
ance ; (q) communicative. The other attributes7 were either rejected as inapplic-
able to the scientist, or the choices were spread evenly over the three-point scale.
In contrast, we can consider the attributes assigned to the artist and the clerk.
In selecting the characteristics of the clerk, adolescents ignored somatic at-
tributes, and also other attributes of a social and physiological nature. As a whole,
they rejected less than for the scientist; and they were also more nearly unani-
mous in their evaluations.$ The only attribute assigned to the clerk but not to the
scientist was ’good taste in personal grooming’. However, the order in which the
different characteristics were placed showed that, according to these adolescents,
the scientist (as compared with the clerk) is more organized, active, constant,

6 We noted (without being able to confirm the point quantitatively) that

young people from private schools, in general, wrote their essays better, with
clearer literary style, and with a smaller number of spelling mistakes than their
colleagues from state schools.
7 The other attributes mentioned in
bipolar form were: white-black; fat-thin;
tall-small; strong-weak; has artistic sensitivity-has no artistic sensitivity; affec-
tionate-indifferent ; amusing-dull; selfish-unselfish; vain-modest; trustful-distrust-
ful ; rich-poor; religious-unreligious; good taste in personal grooming-bad taste in
personal grooming; conservative-liberal.
8 That is to
say, the positive ’scores’ were nearer 100% than those for the
scientist (see note 4).

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360

perceptive, calm, and analytical; and that he has a better memory, manual
dexterity, general culture and creativeness. On the other hand, the clerk is more
courteous, adaptable in his habits, communicative, optimistic and is more careful,
and has better taste, in his personal grooming.
The artist, for the adolescent, is a person whose image is integrated on the
basis of fundamental social and physiological characteristics and, in general terms,
there was more unanimity on the values of the ’positive nucleus’ than in the image
of the scientist. Three attributes were seen as proper only to the artist: he has
artistic sensitivity, good taste, and is amusing. (The adolescents rated these as
’neutral’ - or inapplicable - for the scientist.) The scientist (as compared with
the artist) is held to be more active, more organized, more constant, more
courteous, calmer, more patient, more perceptive and more analytical; he also has
a better memory, general culture, manual dexterity and creativeness. On the other

hand, the artist is more sociable, more careful m his personal grooming, more
adaptable in his habits, more optimistic and more communicative.
In general, the image derived from both the essays and the semantic scale
clearly reflects the characteristics summed up m the ’scientific ethos’, about
which Merton has written. This ethos is made up of a set of norms and values that
are considered obligatory for the man of science, and which shape his scientific

conscience; as such, they will become the qualities with which public opinion will
identify him.

DISCUSSION

Given the tremendous development that science and technology have under-
gone in the past few years, and the intense rhythm with which they will continue
to evolve, scientists must surely occupy prominent places in the world of tomor-
row. In this context, the results of our study become especially relevant, since it is
in the world of tomorrow that these adolescent students will live. Many of them
will assume the role of the scientist, and will determine the extent to which future
generations will become conscious of that role. Any deficiencies in their concep-
tion of science may therefore have unfortunate and longlasting results. This
problem acquires a greater degree of importance in Mexico, especially, where
everything that young people know about science and the scientist is completely
detached from the national environment and focuses on international experiences.
Some of them have perceived this, and have expressed it in statements like this:

No importance is given in Mexico to the work of men of science; we do not

even hear details about the work that is being carried out in the institutions
that are dedicated to scientific research.

In Mexico a kind of ’scientific illiteracy’ exists; the mass media (radio,

television, cinema, newspapers) have not helped to fight this ignorance. In isolated
cases, and predominantly in the last few years (after this study was carried out),
articles have been written about research work; but these have simply celebrated
the presentation of national prizes for science and, because of their sporadic and
sensational nature, have not had a prolonged impact on public opinion. Schools -
the best places for spreading information - have tended to inculcate in their
pupils a universal image of the scientist, as revealed in our study. We do not

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question this since science and the scientist do possess supra-national characteris-
tics. However, we consider that in countries such as Mexico, which is both
dependent and underdeveloped, these universal values could be (and, by now
should have been) modified by special local characteristics. The attributes ques-
tionnaire did not reveal the existence of any such modifications among secondary
school students. However, in some of the essays one can detect criticism of the
hegemonic system which, in less developed areas, has instilled the image of a
scientist who lacks contact with the local characteristics, problems and needs of
his own country.
Little progress can have been made in the years that have passed since our
study began, since even though there has been a considerable increase in attempts
to make the Mexican public more aware of scientific work, this activity has
mainly come from the scientific community itself. The information system in this
country is as dependent as the political-economic system; this situation raises
barriers which we have not yet broken down, and prevents us from transmitting a
more realistic and ’local’ image of our national scientist to the Mexican public. It
would not be fair to say that the political-economic system is completely
responsible for this ’scientific illiteracy’: the scientific community itself must take
part of the blame. The scientist keeps himself aloof from the public. His academic
contacts are predominantly with his own students, and he offers very little to less
specialized groups, such as secondary school pupils - the possible future scien-
tists, and those who probably most need guidance and knowledge about whom a
scientist is, and what his duties, functions and prospects are. Even research
institutes have not given enough attention to circulating their publications and
making their activities known. And the organizations responsible for educational
reforms in the country have been less concerned with spreading information, at a
suitable level, about scientific work carried out in the institutes.
In Mexico, there is no adequate careers guidance programme which can direct
students towards scientific research, and this results from the lack of knowledge
about the subject. One of the aims of our study is to assist such programmes,
since once we know what image the adolescent student has of the scientist, we
can use this knowledge to guide and inform him.
We know that in our country we have become politically conscious of
modernizing production methods, to create a scientific and technological infra-
structure based on radical educational reforms and the stimulation of scientific
research, as one technical solution to the problems of economic development and
cultural independence. It is precisely in this context that not only our study has
arisen, but also a senes of studies related to scientific activity and its place in the
wider field of social structure. Their general aims are to make possible, and to
increase knowledge about, a phenomenon that, until a few years ago, was only
considered tangentially.

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