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This paper presents an analysis of the literature on choosing science courses in school and the determining factors in such choice in light of the important role that this choice plays in the present crisis in the science professions. The factors that influence this choice are personal, school-related, and extra curricular. The most important personal factors are gender and attitudes toward science and toward school science subjects; the paper analyses both attitudes and gender in particular. The quality of science education as implemented through curricula, teachers, and fairness issues are some influential school-related factors. There are many, diverse out-of-school factors. Finally, several proposals to improve the choice of science subjects are discussed, such as strengthening academic counseling in school and innovating science education by giving it a humanistic twist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the traditional approach to the sociology of science based upon Karl Mannheim's sociology of knowledge. Robert Merton's program is discussed as the basis of sociology of science. Furthermore, Kuhn is acknowledged as having set up the foundation for a new paradigm in the sociology of science. This paper intends to defend the work of Kuhn as the framework by which other current studies in the social sciences under the name of «sociologies of scientific knowledge» have come about. Finally, several key pedagogical issues taken from the traditional sociology of science as argued by Merton are discussed. It has been found that pedagogy in terms of sociology of science has closely followed the framework used by the other social sciences. Several advances and achievements that have recently made some headway are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]