Science education and power relations in socio-technical controversies

In this article, we show how students registered in pre-university college studies in Education characterize the management of socio-technical controversies in terms of power relationships. Using responses gathered from a questionnaire and from sessions where participants played a board game relating to nanotechnologies, we found that participants attribute power, specifically decision-making power, to the people they view as having legitimate knowledge. Four scenarios are presented. Depending on the scenario, the largest share of power is assigned either to scientists and engineers, to political representatives, to citizens, or is not assigned to any group of social actors.