Risk and Trust in Science: Ontological Security and Low-Dose Radiation

• Grant number: 25/12777-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2025
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Mauricio Pietrocola Pinto de Oliveira
• Grantee: João Pedro Ghidini da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/06977-5 - Implementation research of curriculum innovation, pedagogical strategies, and emerging technologies for quality-equity in basic education, AP.TEM

Abstract

Modernity, marked by technological and scientific advances, has intensified society's dependence on specialized knowledge, while also revealing its contingency. This scientific uncertainty can generate anxiety, which is aggravated by problems that directly affect the identity of the decision-maker, compromising their ontological security, which can occur in cases related to exposure to low-dose radiation. It is the role of education, therefore, to prepare students to deal with situations like this. This project aims to investigate how trust in science is manifested in situations of uncertainty, analyzing the decision-making of students and teachers when faced with dilemmas involving risk, controversy, and lack of consensus among experts. Based on Case Studies with an exploratory purpose, with a methodological triangulation between discursive textual analysis and analysis of the decision strategy, and Case Studies with a descriptive purpose, performing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the aim is to identify recurring patterns and singularities of trust in decision-making in different cases. The aim is to understand the role of trust and ontological security in decision-making and thus develop theoretical-methodological support for the pedagogical treatment of trust in complex and socially relevant topics.