Keywords

Background

Many academic and non-academic educational efforts are positioned at the intersection between science and/or technology and society with the purpose of increasing the literacy of students and others on the social impact of science and technology and the ability of students to contribute to the academic and non-academic discussions around the social impact of science and technology. To become risk literate about the social risks and other consequences of scientific and technological advancements is a critical aspect of scientific literacy (G. Gardner et al., 2010; G. Gardner and Jones, 2011; Schenk et al., 2019; Ratcliffe and Grace, 2003; Cross, 1993; Lange, 2012). To become risk literate about risk perception is important given the differences in risk perception between groups, the different social risks for different groups and the many groups and their values, circumstances, and motivations one has to take into account in risk governance, as outlined in the introduction to this volume.

The purpose of this chapter is not to engage with risk concepts conceptually or to provide case studies but to introduce the reader to the BIAS FREE Framework (Building an Integrative Analytical System for Recognizing and Eliminating InEquities, BFF), a tool developed for identifying and avoiding biases that derive from social hierarchies by posing 20 analytical questions (Appendix) (Burke and Eichler, 2006; Eichler and Burke, 2006). The premise is that the BFF is a useful tool for educational efforts within and outside academia to enhance risk literacy of scientific and technological advancements and to become literate on topics arising at the intersection of science and society, such as risk perception, science and technology governance, risk governance, public values, science values, trust, biases, and policy development. The BFF benefits risk governance activities as it allows for the unmasking of biases, premises, and positionalities of different actors impacted by science and technology and by revealing differences in risk narratives between different actors and differences in judging risks based on values, ideologies and life experiences of a diversity of people and public perceptions (see Chapter 1).

To have a tool that gives people a set of analytical questions they can use routinely to look for biases, values, premises, and positionalities evident in a given document, whether an academic article, newspaper, social media post or policy document benefits risk communication as it allows one to flag potential problems in risk communication, which, if fixed, could lead to more “accurate and trusted risk communication,” seen as “pivotal” to contemporary risk governance (Chapter 1). If this tool is used routinely, it might increase risk literacy of the user, which in turn might also be beneficial for risk governance as “effective risk governance requires successfully confronting differences in expert and public perceptions of risk” (Chapter 1). The BFF could also be useful to engage with motivated reasoning, something seen as an important factor in risk governance endeavours, as discussed in Chapter 2. Moreover, the BFF could help to evaluate at least two of the four dimensions of public participation (inclusiveness and representativeness, and deliberative quality) covered in the chapters of this book. As to this book’s focus on risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication, the BFF could be useful to unravel biases, values, premises, and positionalities in a given discussion or document, which might allow one to see the usefulness/limitation of the analyzed discourse or document. If done well, this could help strengthen trust in risk assessment, management, and communication. The BFF allows one to analyze information framing techniques in communicating risk (the topic of Chapter 12), increases sensitivity to things like multicultural differences in trusted information sources and channels (the subject of Chapter 14), and empowers the person using the BFF by increasing their literacy on the topic they are investigating (an element of Chapter 10). As put forward in the introduction to this volume, “analysing risk perception through the lens of motivated reasoning emphasizes the pivotal role of values in assessing and managing risk, and helps to identify the values and value conflicts implicit in or obscured from view by traditional science-based assessments.” The BFF allows the user to think about the values, premises, and positionalities evident in a given document.

The chapter gives first some background on the topics of science and society education and on science and risk literacy. Then it outlines problems identified within the academic literature around science and society education and science and risk literacy. Finally, it introduces the BFF and gives nine examples highlighting the usefulness of the BFF as an educational tool to discuss societal aspects of science and technology and to increase risk and science literacy all of which will result in benefiting risk governance.

Science and Society Education

Many academic educational efforts are positioned at the intersection between science and/or technology and society such as science, environment, society, and technology (SEST); environment education (EE); science, environment, technology, and society (SETS); science technology and literacy (STL); science and education for sustainability; STEM and society; science, technology, and society (STS); socio-scientific issues (SSI); science for citizenship; science and technology in society (SATIS); science through science, technology, and society (S-STS); Science in Social Context (SISCON), social studies of science, public understanding of science, science/technology and human values; science and literacy; environmental education; and science, mathematics, and technology education (SMTE). All these discourses cover educational aspects. For example, science, technology, and society (STS) education is grounded in the belief that science education should include historical, philosophical, cultural, sociological, political, and ethical perspectives and the ability to move from individual cases to system thinking (Pedretti, 1999; Waks, 1989). It is argued that science education and SSI education enable students to partake in socio-scientific decisions (Fensham, 2007; Chowdhury, 2016). Teaching STEM and society courses to teachers has a positive impact on teachers ability to teach SSI within the stem curriculum (Macalalag et al., 2020).

Increasing Science Literacy

Science literacy is one goal of science and society discourses (Birdsall, 2013; Chowdhury, 2016) and a focus of science education reforms (G. Gardner and Jones, 2011). Science literacy is also taught outside teaching institutions. Science museums are, for example, involved in increasing science literacy so that visitors can participate in decision-making, understand social and environmental responsibilities, and engage in sociopolitical action (Iannini, 2019).

Hodson proposes what he calls a “radical form of multicultural science education for sociopolitical action” that includes as goals “raising participation and attainment levels in science for students from ethnic minority groups; and sensitizing all students to racism, and other forms of discrimination and oppression, in science and technology, science education, and contemporary society” (Hodson, 1999: 785). He argues

Education for critical scientific literacy is inextricably linked with education for political literacy and with the ideology of education as social reconstruction. The kind of social reconstruction envisaged includes, of course, the confrontation and elimination of racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination, scapegoating, and injustice; it includes a substantial shift away from rampant consumerism and toward a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle that promotes appropriate technology. Adopting appropriate technology entails rejecting technologies that violate our moral–ethical principles, exploit or disadvantage minority groups, or have adverse environmental impact. The curriculum proposals outlined here are intended to produce activists: people who will fight for what is right, good, and just; people who will work to refashion society along more socially-just lines; people who will work vigorously in the best interests of the biosphere. (Hodson, 1999: 789)

According to Hallman, science literacy includes scientific knowledge, knowledge on the impact of a given scientific product or process, and the ability to contribute to science and technology governance discussions within and outside academia (Hallman, 2017).

Science literacy also includes knowledge and the ability to critically think about the interactions among science, technology, society, and environment (Yore and Treagust, 2006), expects an understanding of the impact of societal values, believes in scientific and technological developments (Chowdhury, 2016) and the ability for informed decision-making; it also includes the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information, to deal sensibly with moral reasoning and ethical issues, and to understand connections inherent among socio-scientific issues (SSI) (Bencze et al., 2012).

STS education “aims to promote scientific and technological literacy in order to empower citizen participation in democratic decision-making and citizen action processes for resolving these issues” (Waks, 1989: 429). Social and civic literacy is one goal of science literacy, and citizenship values are expected to have a role in science education (Alghamdi, 2020).

Increasing Risk Literacy

Risk management includes evidence and normative claims as to what is good, acceptable, and tolerable (Renn and Walker, 2008: 333). “Understanding vulnerability of a target – whether it is a system, an individual, a community or a nation – is an important part of estimating risk” (Renn and Walker, 2008: 338). “Public values, concerns, perceptions of risk are seen as equally important for identifying, understanding, and managing risks” alongside scientific and technological aspects and they have to be included (Renn and Walker, 2008: 333). Risk literacy is argued to be essential for a safe everyday life (Nara and Sata, 2016) and influences risk perception (Kusumi et al., 2017). It includes an understanding of risk perception (Nara and Sata, 2016), and how different groups can perceive risks differently (Renn and Walker, 2008). As such risk literacy is essential for risk governance, which “pertains to the various ways in which many actors, individuals, and institutions, public and private, deal with risks surrounded by uncertainty, complexity, and/or ambiguity” (Van Asselt and Renn, 2011: 431). Risk literacy about scientific and technological advancements is a critical aspect of scientific literacy (G. Gardner and Jones, 2011; G. Gardner et al., 2010; Schenk et al., 2019; Ratcliffe and Grace, 2003; Cross, 1993; Lange, 2012). However, risk literacy levels of students are often limited (Carmi and Alkaher, 2019). Schenk, drawing from (Hansen and Hammann, 2017), stated the following three aspects of how risk should be taught:

(1) Scientific knowledge and statistics/probability, including knowledge about the risk issue, basic understanding of statistics and experts’ risk judgements as well as reliability of data. (2) Knowledge about science (uncertainty, science in society and science as social practice), moving towards the issue of science in the making and stakeholders’ and scientists’ role in this. (3) Risk assessment, including risk-benefit analysis, ethical deliberations and decision-making. (Schenk et al., 2019: 1283)

Problems

There are various problems with how science and/or technology and society are taught. Science curricula in Australia are noted to be disconnected from sociopolitical issues (Gough, 2019) and the teaching workforce is unprepared to teach societal aspects of science (Gough, 2019). Schenk argues that risk literacy is not furthered enough in science education (Schenk et al., 2019). Then there is the issue that scientific literacy is influenced by one’s views on social and ethical issues and one’s values, beliefs, and perceptions (Zeidler et al., 2002; Kolstø, 2001; Solomon, 1987; Kelly and Erduran, 2019; Drummond and Fischhoff, 2017; Sinatra et al., 2014). Furthermore, drawing from the motivated reasoning and cultural cognition theory literature, it is argued that “individual risk perceptions—and the acknowledgment of expert consensus—are shaped by their values in ways to maintain their group identities” (Stecula and Merkley, 2019: 3, see also Kahan et al., 2007; Wolbring and Djebrouni, 2018) and “selectively learn only what is supported by their Worldview” (Webler and Tuler, 2021). Motivated reasoning is argued to hinder science understanding (Sinatra et al., 2014; Lobato and Zimmerman, 2019; Levy, 2019) and academic knowledge and evidence generation (Wolbring and Djebrouni, 2018). “When one’s cognition is motivated at arriving at a particular conclusion, then the greater one’s ABILITY, the better one is at making one’s construal of the evidence yield the desired conclusion” (Hallsson, 2019: 2191).

In the remainder of the chapter, the author introduces the reader to the BIAS FREE Framework as an educational tool to increase science and society literacy, including risk literacy.

The BIAS FREE Framework

The BIAS FREE Framework was a tool developed for identifying and avoiding biases that derive from social hierarchies. BIAS FREE stands for “Building an Integrative Analytic System for Recognizing and Eliminating inEquities” (Burke and Eichler, 2006; Eichler and Burke, 2006). The theoretical framework behind the BIAS FREE Framework “draws on a long history of research related to the social dimensions of scientific knowledge, power and access to resources.” Burke and Eichler argue that there are no such things as “value-free” or “emotionally detached”(Burke and Eichler, 2006). Social inequities and the biases surrounding them can be divided into three distinct sets of problems. They name the three problems as follows “Type of Bias H—Maintaining an Existing Hierarchy, Is dominance of one group over the other in any way justified?”, “Type of Bias F—Failing to Examine Differences, Is membership in a non-dominant/dominant group examined as socially relevant and accommodated?” And “Type of Bias D—Using Double Standards, Are non-dominant/dominant groups dealt with differently?” (Burke and Eichler, 2006; Eichler and Burke, 2006)”. To make visible the Bias abbreviated with the letter H (Maintaining an Existing Hierarchy) Burke and Eichler pose eight analytical questions, H1-H8: accepting hierarchy as natural; denying hierarchy exists; adopting the perspective of the dominant group; applying the norms of the dominant groups to non-dominant groups; objectification of specific persons or groups; pathologization (labeled as deficient if one differs from the norm); victim blaming and appropriation (for the actual wording of all the diagnostic question for H, F, D see Appendix below). To make visible the Bias abbreviated with the letter F (Failing to Examine Differences) Burke and Eichler pose four analytical questions, F1–F4: insensitivity to differences, decontextualization, over-generalization, or universalization and assumed homogeneity. To make visible the Bias abbreviated with the letter D (Using Double Standards) Burke and Eichler pose eight analytical questions, D1–D8: overt double standards, underrepresentation or exclusion, exceptional underrepresentation or exclusion, denying agency, treating dominant opinions as facts, stereotyping, exaggerating differences, and hiding double standards (Burke and Eichler, 2006; Eichler and Burke, 2006). Burke and Eichler applied the BFF in various projects such as in an African setting (Eichler and Burke, 2006), building an inclusive national strategy for disabled children in Kyrgyzstan (Burke and Pupulin, 2009) or gender bias and beyond (Eichler and Burke, 2010).

Making Use of the BIAS FREE Framework

Risk literacy. Qualitative and quantitative tools are needed to help students with forming opinions regarding potential consequences of a risk issue (Schenk et al., 2019). The BFF could be such a tool. Risk perception, risk narratives, and whether one uses the term risk is influenced by many factors (Schmidt, 2004; Mañez et al., 2016). Different actors use the very term risk differently (Noga and Wolbring, 2014). Many of the 20 analytical categories of the BFF could unmask risk perception biases that shape risk narratives. Risk is a term that is instrumentalized by many (Noga and Wolbring, 2014). The term is often used as a descriptor without giving it a second thought due to people accepting dominant narratives. How the term is used often reflects various problems indicated by the 20 BFF analytical questions. To give one example, the phrase “risk of having a child with Down Syndrome” is often used in the context of increasing age of women having pregnancies (Wolbring, 2004, 2017a). However, risk is a judgment not a fact in this case. One has a higher probability of having a child with Down Syndrome at higher age of becoming pregnant. However, the term probability or similar factual terms are much less used (Wolbring, 2004, 2017a). Risk is the mainstream use because it gives voice to the mainstreamed pathologization of Down Syndrome, itself a value judgment about people with Down Syndrome. It is one example of risk perception bias and an example for the BFF analytical questions H3, H4, and H5.

Motivated Reasoning. It is argued that motivated reasoning is impacting individual risk perceptions (Stecula and Merkley, 2019; Kahan et al., 2007; Webler and Tuler, 2021), hinders science understanding (Sinatra et al., 2014; Lobato and Zimmerman, 2019; Levy, 2019), and influences academic knowledge and evidence generation (Wolbring and Djebrouni, 2018). The BFF could be used as a tool to identify premises, biases, and positionalities of documents available to students and others on a given topic. Equity, diversity, and inclusion and similar phrases and frameworks are used as concepts to discuss improvements within the workplace, including universities (Wolbring and Lillywhite, 2021) and places that engage with environmental issues (Salvatore and Wolbring, 2021, 2022). The BFF could be used to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion discussions, teaching and research in relation to risk narratives and communication around emergencies and disasters, by identifying the dominant views present and the views missing, such as views representative of EDI-linked groups (Lillywhite and Wolbring, accepted; under review). This increase in awareness could raise the quality of risk education, literacy, narratives, governance, and communication.

Of note, the BFF is not stopping MR behavior as such but could influence MR behavior if people read every document automatically with having in mind the 20 analytical questions of the BFF. Indeed, when the author has used the BFF in the classroom, many of the students become aware of premises, biases, and positionalities they never thought about.

Biases in science textbooks and science education. Various studies have revealed numerous biases in science textbooks (Poredi, 2017; Ragusa, 2013; Ndura, 2004) that could be unearthed by the BFF. Sadker and Zittleman outlined seven biases: invisibility, linguistic bias, stereotyping, imbalance and selectivity, unreality, fragmentation, and cosmetic bias (Sadker and Zittleman, 2010), all of which fit within the BFF Framework. Sadker and Zittleman applied their biases to gender but stated that their work could also be used for “race, ethnicity, the elderly, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and limited‐English speakers” (Sadker and Zittleman, 2010: 83). They argue that analyzing text through the lens of such biases is an important critical reading skill. Poredi in her 2017 Master theses argued that “science textbooks can be analyzed as operative on a number of levels. With specific reference to gender, one can examine representation from the following vantage points: (a) exclusion/invisibility and the underrepresentation of women; (b) stereotyping and assigning gender roles, undermining women’s contribution and those of different ethnic backgrounds to the field of science; (c) linguistic constructions of language that rely on masculine metaphors, undermining the feminine aspects of science; and (d) isolation of women from the realm of science” (Poredi, 2017: 17). Potter and Rosser (1992) argue that “a textbook is a major factor that influences the teaching of science, it stands as an important element that may aid in attracting girls to or deterring them from studying science” (p. 669). Poredi (2017) outlines many studies that found biases related to gender, race, Indigenous people, and disability in science-related textbooks. Many of the biases found fit within the BFF categories. (Ragusa, 2013) looked at visual and written content bias, author’s perspective bias, and omission as bias. The BFF can be applied to visual and written content and author’s perspectives, and omission is present in the BFF under D2 Underrepresentation or exclusion: Are non-dominant groups under-represented or excluded? Hodson (1999) argued that teachers often have a bias toward supporting dominant views exhibited in their teaching material. “Commonly, these teachers perceive ideas and sources of information such as textbooks and movies that draw on dominant perspectives as ‘normal,’ while regarding those that deploy minority position perspectives as biased and ‘political.’” In other words, the setup of their teaching will include many of the BFF biases. To unmask the BFF biases in textbooks might increase the education related to topics such as environmental issues and emergency and disaster management, common areas for risk education, narratives, governance, and communication.

Unmasking hierarchies. Numerous hierarchies are identified in the STEM and science education literature. Science curricula exhibit a hierarchy in which “values and implicit social messages” are taught (Hodson, 1999: 791). Curricula display a hierarchy that prioritizes scientific theory and technological applications over social and political questions (Hughes, 2000; Breunig, 2005). Other forms of hierarchy identified are: presence of gender binaries (Hughes, 2000; Breunig, 2005); hierarchy of knowledge sources (Breunig, 2005) such as Indigenous science knowledge versus other science knowledge (Higgins, 2019); civic hierarchies based on race, class, gender, and other categories of identified social difference (Burton, 2019), hierarchy of needs (Dillon and Teamey, 2002); hierarchy of credibility (Oh, 2017); hierarchy of values (Gresch et al., 2017; Maarschalk, 1988); and power hierarchies that shape what is taught in science education for what end (Gough, 2019; Henderson and Zipin, 2010) and what counts as scientific literacy (Orpwood, 2007). It is argued that educators are often unaware of how they propagate hierarchies, such as hierarchies of knowledge and civic hierarchies, e.g., gender binaries, and that this something that has to change (Hughes, 2000). Many of these hierarchies can be supported by actions that would be unmasked by using the 20 BFF analytical questions.

Lemke argued that not surprisingly “those who succeed in science tend to be like those who define the “appropriate” way to talk science: male rather than female; white rather than black; middle and upper-middle class, native English-speakers, and standard dialect speakers” with the linked North-European middle-class culture ability expectations of “emotional control, orderliness, rationalism, achievement, punctuality, social hierarchy, etc.” (Lemke, 1990: 138). The BFF is a useful tool to analyze documents, such as reports, proposals, academic articles, and education material used in STEM/science/STSE/STS education for all the hierarchies and biases mentioned by Lemke. The BFF has been developed to unmask many of the hierarchies identified in the STEM and science education literature, such as civic hierarchies based on race, class, and gender (Burton, 2019), but also others in relation to disabled people.

Breunig argues that educational and other institutional assumptions including environmental issues, gender issues, issues related to institutional accessibility, and issues of hierarchy and power have to be revealed (Breunig, 2005). The BFF is useful in unearthing the assumptions mentioned by Breunig. Hierarchies of visibility are also present in emergency and disaster management and environmental education and activism (Salvatore and Wolbring, 2021, 2022, Lillywhite and Wolbring, accepted), including risk narratives (Lillywhite and Wolbring, under review). BFF can help to reveal these hierarchies.

Civic hierarchy based on abilities: the case of disabled people. The disabled people’s rights movement coined the term ableism (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013) to provide a term for the cultural reality of an existing hierarchy of body/mind abilities and underscore that a dominant group has the power to set ability norms and to define others as falling short of the ability norms and labelling the other as impaired (disabled people). The disabled people’s rights movement also coined the term disablism to make visible the often-negative disabling use of ability-based judgments and norms against disabled people (Wolbring, 2008, 2014; Miller et al., 2004 ). The disabling use of irrelevant ability norms against disabled people is an example of BFF H4 normalization. Ability expectation in relation to disabled people is one civic hierarchy mentioned in the BIAS FREE Framework in the same way gender, race, and other social hierarchies are mentioned (Burke and Eichler, 2006; Eichler and Burke, 2006). The BFF is being used by the author in disability studies undergraduate classes where students are asked to find examples for the 20 questions of the BFF in relation to disabled people.  They have no problem finding examples for all the 20 questions of the BFF and the BFF has been applied to disabled children (Burke and Pupulin, 2009). The medical view of disabled people is seen especially to negatively impact their presence in the discussions around the “social” dimensions of environmental issues (Salvatore and Wolbring, 2021, 2022), including sustainability issues (Wolbring et al., 2013; participants of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and UNICEF organized Online Consultation, 8 March to 5 April, Disability inclusive development agenda toward 2015 & beyond, 2013; Lieve Sabbe UNICEF and Vladimir Cuk International Disability Alliance, 2013), including emergency and disaster management in general (Lillywhite and Wolbring under review, paper 1) and risk narratives (Lillywhite and Wolbring under review, paper 2). The BFF could unmask these biases and improve the education, research and policy activities around risk narratives, governance, education, and literacy.

Civic hierarchy based on abilities: the case beyond disabled people. Ability-based judgments and norms impact not only disabled people but the relationship between humans in general, humans and animals, humans and nature and humans and machines (Wolbring, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020; Wolbring and Lisitza, 2017; Bentley et al., 2017; Nocella II, 2017; Wolbring et al., 2020). Ability judgments and conflicts between groups are evident and influence how we deal and engage with emergencies and disasters. Many ability-based judgments by and conflicts between people also exist in relation to scientific and technological advancements whereby which abilities are pursued depends on who is the dominant group shaping a discussion. Being stereotyped by the dominant group BFF D6 stereotyping, is one strategy of the powerful (Wolbring, 2020; Perez et al., 2013). Ability-based judgments influence risk perceptions, governance, narratives, and communication. As such, being literate on ability-based judgments, conflicts and power realities is an important aspect of science, society, and risk literacy. The BFF can be used in conjunction with ability expectation exercises to make visible ability-based judgments and conflicts (Wolbring, 2017b; Wolbring et al., 2019) and to increase ability-based literacy, including risk literacy, on the interface between the public and topics covered in risk communications.

Enriching science education. The BFF is a useful educational tool for science education. Sleeter in her book Multicultural Education as Social Activism, which covers multicultural science education, outlines numerous problems that justify multicultural education where the BFF can be used to make visible the problems she mentions, namely, to identify (a) who shapes the discourse, how and why (centering); (b) that theories are socially constructed and often generated by dominant groups to provide justification for their dominance but that theories can also be generated by minorities (social construction of theory); (c) that the dominant ones write history to their liking and use this to set the stage for the future (subjugation and liberation); (d) that dominant groups set social, political, and other boundaries, including by categorizing groups to suit themselves (critique and redefinition of social collectives); (e) that dominant groups define identities of groups but can be undone by the minority groups (sense of identity); and (f) that dominant groups use ability expectations in a disabling way to justify their dominance, such as saying that the dominant group is dominant because it exhibits certain desirable abilities others don’t, which can be countered by an alternative narrative by minority groups (oppressed groups are durable, strong and active) (Sleeter, 1996, see also Hodson describing Sleeter’s work, Hodson, 1999: 792–793).

The BFF can be used to strengthen all levels of learning, namely, the skills of being able to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create (Krathwohl and Anderson, 2009). It can be used to achieve all four curriculum levels of issue-based teaching Hodson outlines for STS and STSE education, which include an engagement with the societal impact of science and technology, an understanding of the forces that influence science and technology advancements, a self-reflection of one’s views on the topic and the ability to take action (Hodson, 2010, see also Rubba and Wiesenmayer, 1985).

It is argued that “students see social issues related to science within a narrow individual lived experience framework and not from a societal, dimension” (Hughes, 2000: 433). By using the BFF tool, students can be taught to recognize various social dimensions. Breunig argues that experiential education and critical pedagogy see the development of a socially just world as one purpose of education (Breunig, 2005). The BFF aligns with this vision.

Likewise, the BFF could be used to enhance decision-making in STSE education by inducing reflection and self-regulated learning (Gresch et al., 2017). It can be used for “interrogating the politics of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning at a global level and for STEM literacies that include robust sociopolitical analysis” (de Roock and Baildon, 2019: 1). Sociopolitical analyses are a recognized part of shaping risk governance and communication (Renn, 2017).

Enriching media literacy and science education. Media literacy and the ability to critically evaluate science-based news to identify fake news and to evaluate scientific literature are part of being scientifically literate and science education (Jarman and McClune, 2010, 2007; Scheufele and Krause, 2019; McDougall et al., 2018; Dani et al., 2010; Magnuson, 2018; Storksdieck, 2016; Jurecki and Wander, 2012; Calado and Bogner, 2013). The BFF is a simple tool students can use to increase their media literacy by marking certain biases, positionalities, and assumptions. Being media literate is essential for risk communication and trust in risk governance.

Teaching science education. Teachers are a catalyst, a change agent, a facilitator, a teacher of action research (Pedretti and Hodson, 1995). The BFF is a useful tool for teachers to fulfill these roles. The BFF is a simple tool that allows students to become aware of problems and realities whereby the BFF could be a catalyst for change. Teaching students to analyze any given text using the BFF as a 20-point checklist might make them less prone to confirmation bias that one reads only what relates to one’s view (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2015; Reed et al., 2019), something seen as a problem for science literacy.

If free of bias is a criterion of objectivity and if judging the objectivity of documents is one goal of teaching students to evaluate scientific literature and other materials critically (Jurecki and Wander, 2012), then the BFF can help with this goal. Furthermore, a course designed “to teach a mixed group of journalism and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors to evaluate expertise and bias, examine data and misrepresentation, and develop evidence-based communication on complex scientific topics” (Reed et al., 2019: 212) would benefit from the BFF.

According to Burton in his thesis Ecopedagogy, the Earth charter, and Manitoba curriculum, the new curriculum for senior years encourages educators to be more critical, to flag biases in their teaching material, to provide a multitude of perspectives and to increase the literacy of students to identify biases in teaching (Burton, 2019). The BFF can be used for all the points raised by Burton and would enrich teaching risk governance and communication, as well as increase risk literacy.

Conclusion

The BFF is a useful tool to make visible biases, premises, and positionalities in science and society discourses, including risk narratives. It also helps to increase the sensitivity of people to look for such biases, premises, and positionalities by using the BFF as a checklist. The BFF is likewise a useful tool in increasing science and society literacy, including risk literacy, of students and other people engaged with science and society topics. It enables the science and society mandate of STEM and science education, which should include risk education. Although the BFF cannot directly change the behavior of motivated reasoning, by giving people a tool to unmask biases, premises, and positionalities present in documents, it adds to the democratization of science and technology governance and risk governance.