Survey of public attitudes toward astronomy in Japan

Abstract

We report on the results of a survey we conducted on the Japanese public’s attitudes toward astronomy. This survey was conducted via an online questionnaire, with 2000 responses received. Based on these data, we present what kind of interest the general public in Japan has in astronomy. We also conducted a questionnaire survey of those involved in communicating astronomy to the public, in order to examine how they differ from the general public. The results suggest that while there are clear differences between these groups in terms of their engagement in astronomy, there is also continuity between them when looking at their attributes in more detail. The data presented in this paper could help us to promote the communication of astronomy to the public.