1 Education as Critical Reflection: On Opportunities of Participation in Genetic Engineering

Organizing communication processes on science and technology in such a way that they facilitate participation is anything but a simple task. “Although participation is a political virtue in and of itself, in practice it is a very challenging and often frustrating endeavor. ” (Fischer 1999:298) Nevertheless, the crucial question–-discussed in this paper–-is: How can science and technology be communicated in such a way that critical reflection is possible? How can it become relevant to design and decision making processes? If emancipation is the goal, would education promise a means to this end? Many publications can be found within the social science domain calling for a change in the communication of scientific expertise in terms of democratization. Still the question that remains is: How do we do it? How must science communication be organized in a way that it does not fall back on the so called deficit model and as far as genetic engineering is concerned does not focus on the knowledge-acceptance-relation. After more than five years of running a public information service called – INFOgen, the author and his colleagues have gained valuable experiences, which are documented through empirical research (Wieser et al. 2001). Against the backdrop of this some conclusions can be drawn and we may provide concrete recommendations for the communication of science and technology. Aiming at Participation When asking for socially sound design [Sozialverträglichkeit] of science and technology, one will often get one answer: this can be ensured through participation. A stronger involvement of users, consumers and patients seems to be appropriate to achieve a socially sound practice. The German sociologist Robert Tschiedel writes for instance, that socially sound technology designs is best understood as a process and as a result o