On the distinction in the sciences: a study of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences

• Grant number: 11/23584-2
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2012
• End date: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Belem Hey
• Grantee: Ana Paula Belem Hey
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project's scope aims to analyze the academic and professional careers of scientists grouped around the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC). The ABC was created in 1916, in Rio de Janeiro, and it is characterised as an instance of consecration of scientists from different fields of scientific knowledge: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Biomedical, Agriculture, Engineering and Sociology. The project intends to demonstrate how ABC can reflect the onslaughts of science in relation to other social spaces and at the same time the typical conflicts between sciences themselves, i.e. the contemporary enjeux around hierarchy and consecration of different disciplinary fields. Furthermore, the survey of empirical data about the scientific and symbolic expertise of approximately 700 scholars in duty, using multiple correspondence analysis for the statistical processing of indicators. The main purpose is to scan the goals of such Association and its role in the Brazilian scientific field from the standpoint of the trajectory of academic and professional training of its members. It seeks to analyse in which extent the scientists who belong to the ABC could serve as an analytical feature to the forging of the scientific elites and thereby contribute to the understanding of the social science ethos in Brazil. (AU)