Attitudes toward science and technology issues and policies are reviewed in this analysis of the "attentive public." The study establishes the size of the attentive public for science, its growth over time, its social composition, the recruitment and socialization of science attentives in the high school and college years, the areas of agreement and disagreement of the attentive public and the science leadership on policy questions, and the significance of these properties of the attentive public for science policy and for democratic politics. The conclusions of the study are based particularly on major surveys involving the general public, high school and college students, and science and technology leaders but also take into account findings of national surveys over a 24-year period. The main contention is that the attentive public for science is a substantial and growing stratum of the population (20% as of 1981) that is interested and informed about science and supports scientific and technological growth. However, findings also indicate that the attentive public is not fully in support of the agenda of the scientific elite and gives higher priority to applied research than to basic research. (ML)