Science centres, science museums, science festivals and similar entities generally consider themselves as actors facilitating social inclusion, social cohesion and social justice. In fact, they present themselves as opportunities for everyone to access the world of science, which in turn is depicted as open, democratic, and egalitarian. This can indeed be true, but it is not automatic. Several indicators show that science centres can also participate in a complex system of discrimination. They can contribute to perpetuating the idea that populations in universities, research institutions, and knowledge-based jobs are more numerous per capita in any given society than they are in reality.

The objective of this session is to place social commitment at the heart of preoccupation in science in society activities with specific focus on listening, dialog and empowerment.

In order for science centres to be truly instrumental to inclusion rather than discrimination, the first step is recognizing when, how and why the types of proposals, language used, design, etc. reinforce rather than overcome cultural, social, and ethnic differences and tensions. Then, a second step is to identify and inspire from actions based on a posture of listening to dialogue with visitors and participants in science in society activities.

The three speakers will walk along this path. In concrete cases, they will identify how they realized they were either unintentionally discriminatory or promoting social injustice. They will then present strategies they have developed to overcome these problems, including examples of listening, discussing and empowering in different contexts. They will end by discussing, for each case, indicators that could assess the impact of their activities in terms of social commitment.