- gauchat@uwm.edu
- 414-229-2236
- Bolton Hall 742
- CV
Gordon Gauchat
- Associate Professor, Sociology
Education
- Posdoctoral Fellow, Cecil Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- PhD, Sociology, University of Connecticut
- MA, Sociology, University of Connecticut
- BA, Sociology and Economics, University of Connecticut
Office Hours
- Bolton Hall, Office #742
- Tuesdays 1:00-3:00pm
Courses Taught
- SOCIOL 911: The Sociology of Institutions
- SOCIOL 715: Systematic Sociological Theory
- SOCIOL 375: Social Theory
- SOCIOL 304: Political Sociology
Research Interests
- Science and Democracy
- Political Sociology
- Cultural-Cognition
- Sociology of Ethics and Institutions
- Quantitative Methods, Measurement
- Economic Sociology
Related Activities
Gordon Gauchat. Keynote Address to Open the Conference. "Changing science culture: public perceptions of science in the US over the past 50 years." Science & You 2021. Université de Lorraine, France. Keynotes | science-and-you.com
National Academies of Sciences. 2017. “Public Perceptions of Science: A Social Scientific Approach.” Honorary Presenter. Examining the Mistrust of Science. Public Perceptions of Science: Social Science Approach (nationalacademies.org)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 2016 “Politics, Ideology, and Social Factors,” Honorary Presenter, The Public Face of Science: Exploring the Determinates of Public Trust in Science.
Department of Chemistry, Sydney University. 2014. Honorary Presenter: “The Cultural Authority of Science: Public Perceptions of Science in Society.”
Skepticism’s dark side: Sociologist identifies “legitimacy crisis” for science - Issuu
The Mistrust of Science | The New Yorker
Live Chat: The Political Brain | Science | AAAS
The politics of science funding | OUPblog (unc.edu)
Study: Conservatives' Trust In Science At Record Low : The Two-Way : NPR
Grants
National Science Foundation, “The Cultural Authority of Science in the Public Sphere: Creating Data Streams for Further Advances,” PI, August 2012-June 2014, Award: $114,000.
Research and Creative Activities Support Award. 2017. “Democratic Values and the Cultural Authority of Science.” University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Award: $10,855.
National Science Foundation, “Science Politicization Pre and Post COVID,” PI, (In Preparation, to be submitted in August 2024).
Biographical Sketch
Gordon Gauchat's research focuses on public perceptions of science at the intersection of political and cultural polarization in the US and Europe. He has published research in Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Science Research, Sociological Forum, Climatic Change, City and Community, Gender and Society and Public Understanding of Science. He is currently working on his first book, Why People Deny Science, which will offer a synthesis of cognitive and cultural explanations of public engagement with scientific knowledge from a sociological perspective. His interests extend to broader societal questions about the relationship between human cognition, institutions, rapid change to knowledge dissemination systems, and the formation of political identity. The horizon of this research is a social scientific model that addresses “advances” in information technology and its effects on the ways human beings cognitively map their world. Particulary, how destablized information systems have eroded the institutional norms around knowledge-making and truth-telling.