Models of Micro‐Organisms: Children’s knowledge and understanding of micro‐organisms from 7 to 14 years old

Current approaches to science‐technology‐society (STS) education focus primarily on the controversial socio‐scientific issues that arise from the application of science in modern technology. This paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach to STS education that embraces science, technology, history, and social and cultural studies. By employing a case study of traditional papermaking technology, it investigates how the interactions between technology and science can be explored in an authentic societal and cultural context across a historical time span. The term technology‐society‐science (TSS) is used to represent an alternative approach to linking technology, society, and science that aims to redress the imbalance between science and technology, and to resolve the tension between two diverging goals of STS education. The educational implications of this alternative approach to STS education are discussed.     

Desiderata: towards indigenous models of vocational psychology

As a result of a relative lack of cross-cultural validity in most current (Western) psychological models, indigenous models of psychology have recently become a popular approach for understanding behaviour in specific cultures. Such models would be valuable to vocational psychology research with culturally diverse populations. Problems facing current psychological models and methods of improving cultural validity are discussed. An integrative model of cross-cultural psychology is reviewed and the relevance of indigenous psychological methods to the advancement of vocational psychology is explained.     

Women study technology: Goals and restrictions

This paper seeks to justify an assertion that an integration between indigenous Ghanaian culture and western science is possible. Using explanatory frameworks derived from the work of Horton, the similarities and differences between indigenous thought and practice of the Mamprusis of Walewale in Northern Ghana, and western science and technology, are demonstrated. The case studies of research on farming practices and medicine are used to illustrate that the integration of the two cultures is possible. The implication of this for a progressive science education is given.     

Technology and Technology Education: Views of Some Solomon Island Primary Teachers and Curriculum Development Officers

The implementation of technology as a formal subject – either separate or integrated – in school curricula is a relatively recent phenomenon with most studies confined to Western or developed countries and little known about non-Western contexts. In this study we sought to gain an understanding of primary teachers' and curriculum development officers' perceptions of technology and technology education for a small island nation in the South Pacific. Participants' views were ascertained by means of semi-structured interviews including the use of picture card prompts used by Rennie and Jarvis (1995). The study reveals that the participants hold a rather limited view of technology and technology education. The participants see technology as consisting of a variety of artifacts and skills (including in some cases indigenous artifacts and cultural practices), but the predominant view was technology consists of modern, new, foreign, artifacts especially those associated with information and communication technologies. The participants view technology education as learning about how to use technological artifacts. Personal experiences including pre- and in-service teacher training and encounters with technological artifacts were the main influences on their views of technology and technology education. These findings suggest that primary science teachers will need pre-service training in order to implement a curriculum that provides a comprehensive understanding of technology.     

RETHINKING THE HISTORY OF INCLUSION OF IKS IN SCHOOL CURRICULA: ENDEAVORING TO LEGITIMATE THE SUBJECT

Much has been said and written about indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) or, as it is also termed, traditional ecological knowledge. My paper does not intend to discuss how it should be termed, although this is also an important issue as the way we name it frames the possibilities we open for this kind of knowledge. The paper rather looks historically at indigenous knowledge inclusion in school curricula, taking as an example the practice in Mozambique. So far, many strategies in so-called culturally inclusive science curricula tend to take students along the pathway of cultural assimilation by integrating IKS into World Modern Science topics. IKS is therefore taken as an instrument for serving the goals of World Modern Science. I argue that we need to find legitimated theories to integrate IKS in order to counteract the practice of teaching IKS in science classrooms detached from its own sociocultural context.     

Decolonising the curriculum: using graduate qualities to embed Indigenous knowledges at the academic cultural interface

The context of this paper is a strategy at a large Australian university that involves embedding a new graduate quality ‘cultural competence’ and lifting the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, experiences and histories. It has been argued that the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges is essential for the decolonisation of our higher education institutions. Decolonisation involves removing the barriers that have silenced non-Western voices in our ‘multi-cultural’ higher education system and combatting the epistemic injustices of a system dominated by Western thought. In this paper, we suggest that our university’s suite of graduate qualities can provide a locus for work at the cultural interface between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. While these qualities may be firmly embedded within Western ways of knowing, being and doing, they can nonetheless be used to interrogate and revisit Western disciplinary knowledge construction and pedagogy so as to help bring about institutional change.     

A cross-cultural study of rural Australian Aboriginal children's undertanding of night and day

Traditional stories are told to many Aboriginal children about night and day throughout Australia. Do these stories influence their scientific thinking? Are there other cultural practices which may influence children's undertandings in science? This paper details a pilot study which sought to find out what four-to-eight year old rural Australian Aboriginal children from central New South Wales think about night and day (N=15). The research design was consistent with previous mainstream cross-cultural studies (Thijs &; Van Den Berg, 1995), but more culturally inclusive in its implementation. The findings raise serious questions about the framing of cross-cultural research and the realisation of indigenous data.     

Culturalizing Achievement Goal Theory and Research

This article is primarily designed to provide a cultural analysis of the literature on achievement goals. First, an overview of the four dominant approaches to the study of culture—namely, cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology, indigenous psychology, and psychological anthropology—is offered. Second, we analyze the extant body of research on achievement goals according to the three metatheoretical orientations of absolutism, relativism, and universalism and argue that cultural research on motivation should adopt a universalist approach as it is most consistent with a motivational science perspective. Finally, we conclude with concrete recommendations for how future research on culture and motivation should proceed in light of a universalistic perspective.     

新型城镇化进程中学校场域多元民族文化交融的路径思考

城镇化的深入推进以及各民族人口更大范围、更高频次的迁徙和流动,必将带来多元民族文化的碰撞、冲突和交融。由于随家庭迁徙和流动的儿童和青少年进入流入地学校就读,带来多元民族文化的冲突和碰撞,学校便成为多元民族文化冲突和交融的典型缩影。新型城镇化进程中加强学校多元民族文化交融的现实意义体现在文化认同、文化共生及文化内化三个层面。学校多元文化交融的路径有四:调动多方主体,营造多元包容环境;倾注人文关怀,搭建跨文化交流平台;深化课程改革,培养学生跨文化适应能力;萃取民族文化营养,利用现代信息技术,促进文化走向共生。     

An examination of some difficulties in integrating Western science into societies with an indigenous scientific tradition

Few would argue that science and technology have had an impact throughout the world. When we speak about such impacts we are implicitly talking about Western science. Historians of science (especially in science textbooks) tend to place the beginnings of modern science at the time of Bacon, with a slight nod to Greek influences. There is little or no recognition of the scientific traditions of Eastern societies (such as China, India, and the Islamic world) and other indigenous cultures. Although there is no argument that science did not develop in the same manner in these societies, it is argued that they have a scientific tradition that should be considered when incorporating modern science into those societies. The difficulties in doing that are discussed, as is the question of the universality of science. The universality of science as a systematized set of processes for learning about the world is supported, but the culture that has arisen around it, resulting in a certain arrogance, is not. It is argued that the benefits of science and technology can be incorporated without the loss of cultural integrity if the society takes over its own research agenda and paradigms and maintains pride in its own traditons. The role of science education in this process is discussed.     

我国多元文化背景中的课程开发模式建构

我国是一个多民族、多文化的国家,有着“多元一体”的文化背景,如何将各民族的文化精华有机融入学校课程中,以反映文化多元价值观点,使各民族文化得到应有的尊重和理解,培养学生形成从多元文化视角审视文化多元价值观点和跨文化适应能力,是新课程背景下课程开发的一个有待深入探讨的现实问题。自下而上的“草根”模式、双语教育模式、本土化建构模式、多元一体的课程开发模式是推进我国多元化背景中的基础教育新课程改革的有益尝试。     

Culture and cognition in information technology education

This paper aims at explaining the outcomes of information technology education for international students using anthropological theories of cultural schemas. Even though computer science and engineering are usually assumed to be culture-independent, the practice in classrooms seems to indicate that learning patterns depend on culture. The situation in a college in Finland is evaluated based on study records, surveys on learning experiences, learning logs by students and classroom observations. Reasons for the educational outcome are discussed theoretically using cultural anthropology and the socio-cultural theory of learning. The universality of Western scientific thinking is questioned, and a need to recognise different cultural schemas in the thinking of international students is acknowledged. The study concludes that a view of human cognition as social and embodied gives new insights to information technology education when there is a great diversity of student backgrounds and their culturally produced mental schemas.     

Indigenous technology of Sierra Leone and the science education of girls

Female school enrolment in Sierra Leone is consistently and significantly lower than that of boys at all levels of the educational system. Certain traditional beliefs, values and practices discriminate against the education of girls. There is an urgent need to adapt the science curriculum to the needs of girls, by including aspects they can relate to and identify with. Using indigenous technology as a basis for science education is a good way to begin. The use of familiar materials and processes will remove the fear often associated with science, thereby encouraging more female participation.     

Negotiating cultural differences in urban science education: an overview of teacher’s first-hand experience reflection of cogen journey

Classrooms across the United States increasingly find immigrant science teachers paired with urban minority students, but few of these teachers are prepared for the challenges such cultural assimilation presents. This is particularly true in secondary science education. Identifying potential prospects for culturally adaptive pedagogy in science education is important for students and teachers alike because it provides means for increasing marginalized students’ access to science fields. In this autoethnography, I document my experience as an immigrant science teacher in an urban intermediate school in New York City. Although I possessed the content knowledge highly valued by the current neoliberal agenda, I lacked the cultural adaptivity necessary to foster a successful learning environment. I utilized cogenerative dialogue (cogen) as a tool to ameliorate instances of cultural misalignments and improve teaching and learning in my classroom. The results of the study show that the interstitial culture produced through the implementation of the different forms of cogen became a reference point to draw upon in improving the overall learning environment.     

关于我国信息技术教育的再认识

信息教育是时代所需，信息素养是社会发展对人才的要求。信息技术是信息教育的技术支持，但不是信息教育的全部。根据我国国情和教育对象的特点，应侧重于加强中小学学生的信息科学教育和信息意识的培养。信息技术教育应该是全面的技术教育，既要包括传统信息技术和现代信息技术，又要包括外显技术以及内隐技术。     

‘Multicultural’ science in South Africa's National Curriculum Statement

Abstract

South Africa's Revised National Curriculum Statement for Further Education and Training (FET) is premised on the view that there are competing perspectives and worldviews from which to make sense of phenomena. Accordingly, elements of indigenous knowledges have been integrated into the discursive terrains of all subjects that form part of the National Curriculum Statement. This policy statement invites several critical questions, some of which are addressed in this article in relation to science education. These include questions as to whether seemingly disparate perspectives of ‘the world’ are competing or complementary and whether science (education) is universal or multicultural. A universalist position holds that Western modern science has superior explanatory powers of understanding the natural world to those of indigenous knowledges. A multiculturalist position holds that science is culturally produced and that cultures have disparate ways of understanding the natural world and that different ways of knowing should be recognised as science. This article discusses critical questions arising from much contestation about the nature of science as a consequence of different perspectives on science held by universalists and multiculturalists. Some of the implications this discussion has for science education in contemporary South Africa are also examined.     

Preparing Science Teachers for Culturally Diverse Students: Developing Cultural Literacy Through Cultural Immersion, Cultural Translators and Communities of Practice

This three year study of P-12 professional development is grounded in sociocultural theories that hold that building knowledge and relationships among individuals from different cultural backgrounds entails joint activity toward common goals and cultural dialogues mediated by cultural translators. Sixty P-12 pre and in-service teachers in a year long interdisciplinary science curriculum course shared the goal of developing culturally relevant, standards-based science curricula for Native Hawai'ian students. Teachers and Native Hawai'ian instructors lived and worked together during a five day culture-science immersion in rural school and community sites and met several times at school, university, and community sites to build knowledge and share programs. Teachers were deeply moved by immersion experiences, learned to connect cultural understandings, e.g., a Hawai'ian sense of place and curriculum development, and highly valued collaborating with peers on curriculum development and implementation. The study finds that long term professional development providing situated learning through cultural immersion, cultural translators, and interdisciplinary instruction supports the establishment of communities of practice in which participants develop the cross-cultural knowledge and literacy needed for the development of locally relevant, place and standards-based curricula and pedagogy.     

A cogenerative inquiry using postcolonial theory to envisage culturally inclusive science education

This forum constitutes a cogenerative inquiry using postcolonial theory drawn from the review paper by Zembylas and Avraamidou. Three teacher educators from African, Asian and Caribbean countries reflect on problems confronting their professional practices and consider the prospects of creating culturally inclusive science education. We learn that in Mozambique, Nepal and the Caribbean scientism patrols the borders of science education serving to exclude local epistemological beliefs and discourses and negating culturally contextualized teaching and learning. Despite the diverse cultural hybridities of these countries, science education is disconnected from the daily lives of the majority of their populations, serving inequitably the academic Western-oriented aspirations of an elite group who are “living hybridity but talking scientism.” The discussants explore their autobiographies to reveal core cultural values and beliefs grounded in their non-Western traditions and worldviews but which are in conflict with the Western Modern Worldview (WMW) and thus have no legitimate role in the standard school/college science classroom. They reflect on their hybrid cultural identities and reveal the interplay of multiple selves grounded in both the WMW and non-WMWs and existing in a dialectical tension of managed contradiction in a Third Space. They argue for dialectical logic to illuminate a Third Space wherein students of science education may be empowered to challenge hegemonies of cultural reproduction and examine reflexively their own identities, coming to recognize and reconcile their core cultural beliefs with those of Western modern science, thereby dissipating otherwise strongly delineated cultural borders.

Multicultural Education and Newcomer Youth: Re-Imagining a More Inclusive Vision for Immigrant and Refugee Students

In this article, we draw attention to the discourses and practices of multicultural and culturally relevant education as curricular contexts with long-lasting implications for newcomer youth. To best serve immigrant and refugee students and more explicitly include them in the field's discourse, we argue for a conceptual move to widen the scope of multicultural education and culturally relevant pedagogy. We highlight the tremendous contributions multicultural education approaches have made to equitable education, while also examining the ways in which some of their widespread theoretical framing have yet to address the particular needs of immigrant and refugee youth. We then suggest conceptual shifts to widen their scope to include newcomer youth's varied experiences and identity positions. These shifts are (a) advancing the role of genuine cross-cultural relationships over traditional forms of cross-cultural competence in multicultural educational spaces and (b) abdicating the search for cultural authenticity implied in some multicultural education practice in favor of facilitating cultural agency for newcomer youth.     

How to reconcile the multiculturalist and universalist approaches to science education

The “multiculturalist” and “universalist” approaches to science education both fail to recognize the strong continuities between modern science and its forerunners in traditional societies. Various fact-finding practices in indigenous cultures exhibit the hallmarks of scientific investigations, such as collectively achieved rationality, a careful distinction between facts and values, a search for shared, well-founded judgments in empirical matters, and strivings for continuous improvement of these judgments. Prominent examples are hunters’ discussions when tracking a prey, systematic agricultural experiments performed by indigenous farmers, and remarkably advanced experiments performed by craftspeople long before the advent of modern science. When the continuities between science and these prescientific practices are taken into account, it becomes obvious that the traditional forms of both multiculturalism and universalism should be replaced by a new approach that dissolves the alleged conflict between adherence to modern science and respect for traditional cultures.