Lisa Sigl co-organised a workshop at the STS-CH Conference in Zürich (10.-12. September 2025)

The workshop with the title "Supporting capacity for critique by teaching Science-Technology-Society (S-T-S) in STEM fields?" addressed the question how academic integrity relates to critical reflection of societal issues. Amongst others, we discussed how the discussion of societal (social, environmental, etc.) issues can best be embedded in teaching. Der Workshop was co-organised with Bianca Vienni-Baptista (ETH Zürich) and Maximilian Fochler (Universität Wien). 

 

Abstract: 

STS scholars are increasingly involved in teaching courses about societal and environmental issues in relation to science and technology within STEM fields. This opens opportunities for supporting capacities of critique in technoscientific communities but has also met the worry that such teaching is a way of importing critique without embedding it in respective cultures of research and communities of practice. In this panel, we want to exchange on practices and conditions that support capacity for critique in teaching in such embedded ways. Discussion of these issues seems particularly urgent as normative underpinnings of some tech communities seem to be changing (e.g., tech bro culture, dismantling of DEI and Ethics programs), and populistic policy-makers are calling for restricting teaching content (US) and blacklisting teachers (AT), therewith articulating aims of narrowing down resources for critique in higher education. This interactive session consists of semi-structured group discussions based on vignettes addressing normative issues in STS teaching. Participants will elaborate on their own experiences in facing these challenges and in understanding how the kinds of critique STS has to offer can be brought to teaching in STEM fields. 

 

We ask how STS resources can be transformative of how normative issues are addressed in STEM fields and support capacities of imagining alternative futures. We also ask what “supporting critique” can legitimately mean in teaching contexts: Does it mean to enable more conscious decisions on value-based aspects in science and technology, or also to normatively argue for values that we perceive as emancipatory?

https://sts-ch.org/sts-ch-2025/, opens an external URL in a new window