• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.6 no.2 s.12
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• pp.77-102
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• 2006

This paper analyzes shaping of the discourse of "avoidance of S&T" throughout 2002 in Korea and main ideas on it and argues that the Korean S&T community is not homogeneous. The Korean S&T community consists of many subgroups with different interest mainly according to the institutions where they work as well as their specialties, qualifications, and tasks. The discourse of avoidance of S&T" was begun with the first notice of the rapid decrease in applications of Korean SAT for S&T majors in the middle of 2001. The decrease was interpreted as a warning sign of the avoidance of S&T among teenagers and developed into the avalanche of discussions on the causes of such rapid decrease around the end of the year. However, through 2002, the "avoidance of S&T' was developed into a general policy agenda covering most of problems in S&T, not just a teenagers' issue any more. Many scientists and engineers claimed that their own difficulties and problems be the main causes of the "avoidance of S&T". In the name of measures to overcome the avoidance, they requested the government to solve their problems and to accept their demands. Those claims varied from group to group. Some of them were shared among all scientists and engineers; some of them were criticized by other groups with different interest in it; some of them did not get any attention of other groups. Scientists and engineers seemed to have no idea on cooperative strategy to draw positive response to their requests from the government.