To vaccinate or not to vaccinate: how teenagers justified their decision

Abstract

This article reports on a study of how teenagers made their decision on whether or not to vaccinate themselves against the new influenza. Its purpose was to identify connections between how teenagers talk about themselves and the decision they made. How do the teenagers construct their identities while talking about a specific socio-scientific issue? Seven teenagers between 17 and 19 years of age participated in the study. The informants were requested to document in video diary situations in which their decisions about the vaccination were discussed. All the teenagers recorded their diaries during the weeks of the vaccination programme. The students were also interviewed 1-4 weeks after completing their diaries. A discourse psychology framework (Potter and Wetherell 1987) was used to analyse the video diaries and the interviews. In this context, decision-making on a socioscientific issue must be understood as an appropriation and use of discursive repertoires, and also as meaning-making in relation to other fields, such as society and identity. It must also be understood in relation to the use of science repertoire-or actually, the school science repertoire-how available is this discourse in different contexts outside school? The repertoires were categorised into two main types; experienced emphases and important actors. The first included the categories of risk, solidarity and knowledge. The second included family and friends, media, school and society. The school repertoire was seldom used by the students, indicating that school and science education seem not to be an interpretative repertoire available to them. Instead, the risk, solidarity, family and friends and the media repertoires were available in their talk about vaccination. These results indicate the need to use media reports in dealing with scientific literacy and also in risk assessment discussions in school. It also indicates the importance of relating school science closely to the students' daily life.

What do we mean by science education for civic engagement?

“…As we have noted previously, there has been a tendency in this work to conflate the wide variety of science‐related interactions and issues individuals confront under a single heading, such as socioscientific issues or science for citizenship. Using the conceptual framework above, though, we can see that while having student groups lobby local community leaders to embrace green‐energy technologies as described recently by Birmingham and Calabrese Barton () or to consider whether a government agency should actively work to eradicate invasive species (Liu, Lin, & Tsai, ) are clearly instances of science‐related civic engagement, exploring why individuals make particular lifestyle choices such as choosing to eat or avoid fast food (Ideland & Malmberg, ) or whether to vaccinate a child (Lundström, Ekborg, & Ideland, ) are not. It is important to note that important public issues (like vaccination and dietary choices) conceptually straddle the public/personal divide; this is the case where the accumulation of many individual decisions can have serious consequences for the public at large.…”

Modelización, argumentación y transferencia de conocimiento sobre el sistema inmunológico a partir de una controversia sobre vacunación en futuros docentes

“…Es más, también, han demostrado una mejoría en el aspecto que es considerado más difícil y que indica una alta calidad de la argumentación (Erduran et al, 2004;García-Milá et al, 2013) hagan un 69,4 %. La consideración de los efectos secundarios es relativamente alta, lo que coincide con lo observado por Lundström et al (2012), y aumenta a lo largo de la secuencia.…”

“…Aunque son escasas las que abordan el estudio del sistema inmunológico, cabe destacar la de Aznar y Puig (2016a, 2016b, sobre las concepciones y modelos del profesorado de primaria en formación sobre la tuberculosis, y la que analiza los aspectos que tienen en cuenta un grupo de adolescentes para tomar la decisión de vacunarse o no (Lundström, Ekborg, y Ideland, 2012).…”

“…La investigación planteada por Lundström et al (2012) facilita, a través de la controversia científica de la vacunación, desarrollar la argumentación y la toma de decisiones. Los autores analizan qué aspectos tienen en cuenta siete adolescentes entre 17 y 19 años para tomar la decisión de vacunarse contra la gripe.…”

Concepciones y modelos del profesorado de primaria en formación acerca de la tuberculosis

“…34.1 (2016): 33-52 1990). Sobre estos dos temas, los medicamentos y las vacunas, destacamos algunos trabajos que analizan la función de los medicamentos (Hämeen-Anttila y Bush, 2008) y controversias como la medicalización y la vacunación (Domènech et al, 2015;Lundström, Ekborg, Ideland, 2012).…”