The public image of science in the Czech and Slovak Republics

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results of a survey into the prestige of various occupations in contemporary Czechoslovak society, which was carried out in November 1990 on a representative sample of 1400 respondents in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The results show a high level of prestige of scientific (research) professions. All the five representatives of the research community finished among the top 20 professions (a total of 49 different professions were evaluated). Out of these, associate professor was third in the scale of prestige, with scientist fourth and head of a research centre tenth. The prestige of scientists did not depend statistically on the age, sex or education of respondents. From factor analysis it follows that the group of professions connected with science or research forms a relatively independent subgroup of professions assessed by respondents in a similar manner. Finally, the prestige of scientific and research professions in Czechoslovak society is much higher than scientists think it is.