Adaptation and Validation of a Science Capital Instrument for the Brazilian Educational Context

Science capital, the sum of science-related knowledge, attitudes, experiences and social contacts that a young person can draw upon, has become an influential lens for understanding why participation in science remains socially stratified. The instruments that operationalise it, however, were developed in England, where access to museums and science centres is comparatively dense, and no adapted and validated version exists for Brazilian basic education. This article reports the cultural adaptation of the ASPIRES 2 science capital questionnaire for Brazilian lower- and upper-secondary students and gathers evidence of validity based on test content, response processes and internal structure. Adaptation involved translation, item reduction, the substitution of institution-dependent practices by everyday practices common in small towns and rural areas, and the addition of a block on territorial access; the draft was reviewed in two rounds by ten peer reviewers and piloted with eleven students. The final version was answered by 522 students from public schools in Rio de Janeiro state, split into a calibration sample (n = 354) and an independent validation sample (n = 168). Exploratory factor analysis on polychoric correlations, followed by confirmatory factor analysis with the WLSMV estimator, supported three correlated dimensions: science-related practices (10 items; ordinal ω = .75), science self-efficacy and identity (5 items; ω = .69) and perceived relevance of science (3 items; ω = .67), with acceptable approximate fit (RMSEA = .056, SRMR = .057) and marginal incremental fit (CFI = .918). Two negatively worded items about stereotypes formed a separate factor, and the territorial items did not form a scale. The structure was approximately invariant across gender; across rural and urban schools, loadings were invariant but item intercepts were not. Scores were associated with home reading resources and with STEM-related aspirations in the expected direction. The instrument is suitable for research use at group level, with revisions recommended before national administration.