SCIENTIFIC LITERACY AND ITS EVOLVEMENT IN THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE

Abstract

Scientific Literacy-LC in the various domains of scientific and technological knowledge, has been seen as necessary to form the citizens, who, when scientifically literate, make social use of science, understanding scientific information disseminated in everyday life and incorporating it into own  needs. The objective of this work was to bring together concepts and contributions from LC; and present bibliometric indicators on this phenomenon. Bibliometry was used to extract data from the Scopus database in September/2022, verifying “scientific literacy/Scientific Literacy” in articles published in Brazil and world. The main conclusions indicate that the countries considered developed are ranked among the top ten places, with the USA leading with 23.8% of world publications regardless of the theme; and Brazil, in 15th place, with 1.8% of publications. In works on CL, the US is in first place, with 32.5%; and Brazil, in ninth place, with 3.6%. The areas that most publish about CL in the world and in Brazil are Social Sciences and Humanities. Of the articles published worldwide, 91.2% are in English; in Brazil, 51.6% are in Portuguese; and 50.0% in English. It is suggested that the LC arouses current interest in the scientific community, since, worldwide, publications on the subject increase with an annual average rate of 13.3%. In this work, the main authors, institutions, areas, journals and languages ​​of publications on CL were mapped, showing its importance to support research in different areas, whether educational, social, applied to health, among others.