ABSTRACT
Tables 11.1a, 11.1b and 11.1c list the main surveys of public understanding of science among adult populations since 1957, typically with nationally representative samples of 1,000 interviewees and more. The lists show the best-known surveys of scientific literacy, public interests and attitudes to science, many of which are partially comparable because they have often been modelled on the US National Science Foundation indicator (NSF) indicators series since 1979. The Eurobarometer series covers science since 1978 in initially eight and recently 32 European countries, with Britain covered (MORI, ESRC, OST, Wellcome Trust, BIS) since 1985 while the French series (see Boy 2012) reaches back to 1972; Italy started a regular survey in the early 2000s. The earliest of these PUS surveys dates from 1957 in the USA, just before the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik shocked the western world (Withey 1959). These efforts were imitated and adapted across the globe during the 1990s and into the 2000s, first in Asia (Japan, China and India), Russia, Australia and New Zealand, and, in the early 2000s, the survey effort arrived in Latin America sponsored by an Ibero-American network. Brazil and Colombia had earlier surveys in 1987 and 1994. South Africa is constructing a national PUS survey base, after
earlier attempts included white-population-only samples. Nigeria is the other African country from where PUS data is emerging (Falade 2014).
