This article was downloaded by: [University of California, Riverside Libraries]On: 08 October 2014, At: 14:49Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Intercultural EducationPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

Research perspectives onculturally sensitive scienceeducationJill SlayPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Jill Slay (2001) Research perspectives on culturally sensitive scienceeducation, Intercultural Education, 12:2, 173-184, DOI: 10.1080/14675980120064818

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675980120064818

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Intercultural Education, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2001

Research perspectives on culturallysensitive science educationJILL SLAY

ABSTRACT Issues of culture and world view, and their impact on students’ learning ofscience, have become increasingly important to science teachers. This paper provides areview of the development of science education research perspectives on culture andmulticulturalism within the science classroom. The review draws on cross-disciplinarysources for its understanding and examines the work of Western and non-Western scienceeducation researchers. Re� ections on the literature provide an insight into the Australiancross-cultural situation as the author considers the effect of culture on her own practices asa science educator and in a multicultural classroom.

Introduction

Issues of culture and world view, and their impact on students’ learning of science,have become increasingly important to science teachers over the past few years asconcepts of multiculturalism originating in the humanities have increasinglyin� uenced their classroom practice. Academic debate in the early 1990s provided atheoretical basis for much cross-cultural work in science education. More recentwork in the last two years has provided some extra insight into the issue of providingsolutions for the science teacher to the cross-cultural problems that are faced in thescience classroom.

Re� ections on the literature provide insight into the Australian cross-culturalsituation as the author considers the effect of culture on her own practices as ascience educator in a multicultural classroom.

De� nitions of World View, Culture and Multiculturalism for Science Edu-cators

What is a World View?

The term “world view” (Cobern, 1991) has two different connotations in English.The � rst has a philosophical meaning and involves a person’s concepts of humanexistence and reality; the second is an individual’s picture of the world that he or shelives in. The term “world view” as used in anthropology refers to the “culturally-de-pendent, implicit, fundamental organizations of the mind (Cobern, 1991, p. 19).

ISSN 1467-5986 print; 1469-8489 online/01/020173-12 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/14675980120064818

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

174 J. Slay

Kearney’s understanding of world view, and the one used by Cobern (1991), is theworking de� nition which I have used in my study:

… the world view of a people is their way of looking at reality. It consistsof basic assumptions and images that provide a more or less coherent,though not necessarily accurate, way of thinking about the world. (Kear-ney, 1984, p. 41)

What is Culture?

Culture is a concept that is often discussed in science education literature. Thede� nition of culture is often “understood” by researchers in different academic � eldsas they carry out their studies. De� nitions of “culture” in science education researchhave generally originated in one of two domains:

· anthropology and ethnography;· political empowerment

Anthropology and ethnography. A classic de� nition of culture found in early anthro-pological literature, is that it is the “knowledge, belief, law, morals, customs” (Tylor,1871) which are passed on from one generation to another within a particularsociety or group of people. He saw his � eld as one in which the workers’ primary rolewas that of compiling a “philosophy of primaeval history”. Anthropologists ofTylor’s generation were expected to examine a “civilisation” and produce a taxon-omy with categories such as weapons, textile arts, myths, rites, and ceremonies.Tylor saw this activity as a scienti� c one and as a parallel to that of the plant andanimal scientists of his time who were completing classi� cations of “botanical andzoological species”.

Malinowski (1948 [1922]), another early anthropologist, is famous for his ethno-graphic � eldwork, particularly among Trobriand islanders. In his time, he wasconsidered unscienti� c because of his reliance on the detailed � eld notes of hisobservations. It had already become traditional, in his time, to rely on the writtenopinions of experts on speci� c aspects of culture such as religion or magic. However,in his work, Malinowski demonstrated the study of culture as an art rather than ascience, and failed in his attempts to produce anthropological and positivist scienti� claws regarding culture from his collected work. He states in his essay “Baloma; thespirits of the dead in the Trobriand Islands” (1922), that one of his major rules incommencing his � eldwork had been to gather “pure fact”. He stated that he wantedto keep interpretation separate from “pure fact”. However, he realized that there hadto be a form of interpretation in the � eld, otherwise he was dealing with a mental“chaos of facts”. He concluded that what he was dealing with were not scienti� cfacts and that the “often fragmentary, incoherent, non-organic nature of much of thepresent ethnological material is due to the cult of ‘pure fact’ ” (Malinowski, 1948,p. 45). Malinowski’s perspective on the study of culture was that it consisted largelyof identifying particular human behaviour, and interpreting the underlying beliefscausing the speci� c behaviour.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Culturally Sensitive Science Education 175

“Civilizations” and societies have become (in some ways) much more complexduring the twentieth century, and anthropological concepts of culture have beenapplied in many � elds of study, including nursing, studies of policing and factorywork (Van Maanen, 1995). The de� nition of “culture” has thus been extended, anddescribed in many complex and diverse ways. Van Maanen comments (1995) thatthere is still considerable debate concerning “the sacred heart of ethnography, theculture concept”. Postmodernists and deconstructivists also have problems with theconcept of discrete and � nite cultures and an “incredulity towards metanarratives”(Lyotard, 1984). Others regard the concept of culture as something left over froma colonizing era (Fabian, 1983).

The de� nition of culture that is most commonly found in the literature of scienceeducation (Cobern, 1991; Waldrip & Taylor, 1995) is that of Clifford Geertz:

The concept of culture I espouse … is essentially a semiotic one. Believ-ing … that man is an animal suspended in webs of signi� cance he has spun,I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not anexperimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search ofmeaning. (Geertz, 1973, p. 3)

Geertz’s de� nition is one which proposes that a person’s knowledge of his or herworld is essentially mediated by signs, and it is the structure of these signs whichestablishes reality for an individual or a group. The role of the anthropologist is toact as the interpreter of the structure of the signs that are revealed by a distinctpeople group to members of other groups.

Political empowerment. Another de� nition of culture that is common among educa-tors is that of a “straightjacket fashioned by irresistible societal forces” (Taylor,1994). There is a link also between this notion of culture and multiculturalism, andthe ensuing effect of multiculturalism on pedagogy, which will be examined later.Giroux’s understanding of culture in this domain is one that is widely accepted ineducation:

culture is reduced to a type of monumentalism and the pedagogy throughwhich it is expressed is organized around the process of transmission andthe practice of moral and political regulation. (Giroux, 1990)

Within the literature of science education, especially when dealing with issues ofmulticulturalism, the de� nitions of culture become blurred. Some researchers adopta critical perspective on the explication of culture from anthropology and Geertz’s(1973) “webs of signi� cance” become interwoven with the politicized“straightjacket” of the system, as expressed by Giroux (1990).

What is Multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism involves the concept of “including many cultures”. It appears thatscience educators, in talking about multiculturalism, use de� nitions of culture thatare derived from both anthropology as expressed by Geertz (1973), and the realm

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

176 J. Slay

of “political empowerment”. It is important to disentangle the two perspectives toidentify the main thrust of the researchers’ arguments.

The implications of multiculturalism for Western science educators. Multiculturalism hasbecome a highly politicized issue in Western society. The basic American issueappears to be a perceived attack on America’s “single uni� ed culture” (Chavez,1994). The problem is expressed succinctly by Kimball:

Implicit in the politicising mandate of multiculturalism is an attack on theidea of common culture, the idea that despite our many differences, wehold in common an intellectual, artistic and moral legacy, descendinglargely from Greeks and the Bible, supplemented and modi� ed overcenturies by innumerable contributions from diverse hands and people. Itis this legacy which has given us our science, our political institutions, andthe monuments of artistic and cultural achievement that de� ne us as acivilisation. Indeed, it is this legacy, insofar as we live up to it, thatpreserves us from chaos and barbarism. And it is this legacy that themulticulturalist wishes to dispense with. (Kimball, 1990)

D’Souza sees that:

the debate about multiculturalism is not over whether to study othercultures but how to study the West and other cultures. Multiculturalism isbetter understood as a civil con� ict within the Western academy overcontrasting approaches to learning about the world. (1995)

Several science educators deal with aspects of the politicized concept of multicultur-alism, particularly within American society, and its effect on pedagogy. Stanley &Brickhouse (1994) perceive multiculturalism as an issue that is central to moderneducators, and one which is challenging the basic underpinning concepts on whichscience educators build their modern curricula. They state:

Multiculturalists are raising questions that pose a fundamental challenge tothose traditional forms of knowledge that have assumed Western canonicalthought ought to compose the core of school curricula. (Stanley & Brick-house, 1994, p. 387)

They draw attention to the fact that many Arts curricula have been criticized fortheir white, male, middle-class cultural perspectives. These are seen as perspectivesthat do not allow for the different conceptual frameworks of those with, for example,different world views or sexual orientations. However, they note that scienceeducation has been largely unaffected by the same criticism. They believe that thisis due to the Universalist position which is commonly held by scientists and scienceeducators, which asserts the absolute reality of science, unaffected by the context ofthe investigator.

In their opinion, the result of the positivist tendencies among Universalists allowsthem to present their interpretation of scienti� c reality without any sense of re-sponsibility for the “truth” they present. This then also gives permission for the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Culturally Sensitive Science Education 177

“destruction of knowledge systems deemed inferior” (Stanley & Brickhouse, 1994,p. 393) by Western standards. They give examples of this destruction of knowledgesystems with reference to African agriculture, and with the replacement of tra-ditional midwifery by physician-attended childbirth.

They conclude by stating that if the Universalist position is just one view amongmany, then there cannot be a single conceptual framework for the presentation ofscience and, therefore, for science education. They feel that this implies that thescience curriculum should present many cultural perspectives, rather than its tra-ditional single one. They do not believe that each cultural perspective should havethe same degree of in� uence on the curriculum, but rather be exempli� ed within it,in order to demonstrate to the student the thinking associated with different worldviews and cultures.

In his response to Stanley and Brickhouse, Good (1995) asserts that science ismulticultural because it is carried out throughout the world. He challenges Stanleyand Brickhouse to � nd some signi� cant scienti� c example from cultures outside theUSA to enhance the American science curriculum. He provokes them to be morespeci� c in their criticism of positivism and re-emphasizes his Universalist position,inasmuch as he quotes “science presumes that the things and events in the universeoccur in consistent patterns that are comprehensible through careful systematicstudy” (AAAS, 1989, p. 25)

Loving (1995) chooses to compare the work of Stanley and Brickhouse (1994)with that of two other studies. The � rst is that of Rakow and Bermudez (1993),whose conclusion is that the inclusion of the values and world view of their Hispanicstudents should enhance the curriculum. The second is that of Hodson (1993) whoappears radical in his desire to make the science curriculum relevant to each culture,perhaps to the exclusion of traditional “Western” scienti� c understanding. Loving“inserts” Stanley and Brickhouse in the middle of the spectrum that has Rakow andBermudez at one extreme and Hodson at the other.

Loving also questions the Stanley and Brickhouse position with regard to univer-salism, and the method by which they would change the existing science curriculumto allow for the inclusion of culturally appropriate additional material. She alsoquestions whether Stanley and Brickhouse are just advocating a culturally sensitive,multicultural approach, or “many sciences” presented from many cultural back-grounds. She agrees with them that science has often appeared to be a very narrowdiscipline, but she tends to allot a greater portion of blame to poorly preparedscience educators rather than to philosophers.

Having examined the work of Stanley and Brickhouse and the comment fromLoving and Good, it becomes immediately apparent that there are two aspects ofone problem being faced simultaneously. The � rst is the debate on the absolutereality of science, which is a major issue if one wishes to assert that culture and worldview genuinely effect a student’s conceptualization of nature.

The second aspect is that they, and their respondents, have embedded theirargument in the current American educational situation. Their de� nitions of multi-culturalism are ones where culture has a partial political � avour, which is notappropriate for a more general study. The “cure” proposed by Rakow and

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

178 J. Slay

Bermudez (1993) and Hodson (1993) is one that, in the general case, seems eithertoo localized (to the USA), or too simplistic for the complexities of life in atransnational multicultural teaching setting.

In reading the debate between Stanley and Brickhouse, Good and Loving, aresearcher from another background takes the role of a bystander in a localAmerican, but nevertheless valid, philosophical debate.

Non-Western Research in Socio-cultural Constructivism and Science Education

Non-Western science educators have expressed their own perspectives on the effectof culture on their own teaching and the nature of their “local” perspective inscience debates. With the development of the Science, Technology and Society(STS) perspective in Western science education (Yager, 1980) there has been astream of research from Asia and Africa with a non-Western socio-cultural view-point.

Ogawa (1986) commented that a STS perspective did not always provide acomprehensible explanation for non-Western science education that is not im-mersed in a society that is based primarily on science and technology. He suggestedthat for the non-Western society the term “society” needed to be replaced with theconcept of “culture”. He proposed a model for a rationale of science education thatcould deal with the interaction of traditional culture and Western culture. Hesummarized his model as follows:

1. Science should be viewed in a cultural context and be relativized.2. Characteristics of science as a culture (especially of the scienti� c view of man and

nature and the scienti� c way of thinking) should be compared with their tra-ditional culture.

3. Science as a culture should be seen within the context of the students’ traditionalculture (Ogawa, 1986, p. 118).

Ogunniyi (1988), basing his thinking on the work of Ogawa (1986), tried to bringtogether what he saw as the con� icts between a Western and an African world view.His argument was that although Western and African sciences both deal with theissue of interpreting the natural world, they are founded on divergent abstractmodels. “Science is based on a mechanistic explanatory model, while the traditionalworld view is based on an anthropomorphic explanatory model” (Ogunniyi, 1988,p. 6). His solution was that further studies should be attempted to determine thetraditional view of various cultures and determine areas of shared understanding.With this shared understanding as a basis, and with an understanding of potentialcon� ict, the science education curriculum could then be determined.

In a study from 1991, other African researchers, Jegede and Okebukola (1991),examined the relationship between African students’ beliefs and their acquisition ofscience process skills. In this study, African students were given experimental tasksthat con� icted with traditional beliefs and sometimes broke taboos. It was foundthat students with a low level of traditional belief scored better on the tasks that

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Culturally Sensitive Science Education 179

involved the breaking of taboos. However, when there was no con� ict with tra-ditional beliefs, then all students performed relatively equally.

They also completed a different study (Okebukola & Jegede, 1990), using a surveyinstrument that attempted to correlate four factors with the attainment of scienti� cconcepts. These factors were General Environment (manual or automated), Rea-soning Pattern (empirical or superstitious), Goal Structure (cooperative, competitiveor individualistic) and Nature of the home (authoritarian or permissive). Theauthors showed that there is a correlation between superstition and lack of attain-ment of scienti� c concepts.

Jegede (1994) saw many cultural factors involved in the teaching and learning ofscience; these included a traditional world view, societal expectations and the extentto which a society holds magical views incompatible with Western thought. Inrespect to the STS movement and its implications for African science education, hecommented that the best way to improve science education in Africa was to use a“conceptual ecocultural paradigm” that consists of:

1. Generating information about the African environment to explain natural phe-nomena.

2. Identifying and using indigenous scienti� c and technological principles, theoriesand concepts within African society.

3. Teaching the values of typical African humane feelings in relation to, and in thepractise of, technology as a human enterprise (Jegede, 1994, p. 130).

In a later study, Ogunniyi et al. (1995) examined the world view presuppositions of250 science teachers from Botswana, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria and the Philippines.Their � ndings suggest that science teachers, who themselves come from non-West-ern cultures, hold varying views on the nature of science and often hold “scienti� c”and “nonscienti� c” world views in tension. They question the implications of their� ndings on curriculum development and pedagogy, and consider that furtherexamination needs to be made of the issue of science teachers’ world view on theirstudents’ learning.

Rampal (1994) reports on a study in India, similar to that of Jegede andOkebukola (1991), in which teachers and their students were taught to break taboosin their scienti� c investigations. She comments that it is dif� cult, in an Indiancontext, to distinguish between traditional religious, magical and superstitiousbeliefs. She sees that this has produced a “closed” system of thought that constrainsstudents, not allowing them to consider scienti� c alternatives as explanations fornatural phenomena. In her work, science teachers were consulted. They wereinvolved in such a way that “science was seen as a speci� c system of knowledge,based on empirical validation, which did not necessarily interfere with one’s personalphilosophy or mode of worship” (Rampal, 1994, p. 134). She comments that afterteachers were helped to distinguish taboos and superstitions they were encouragedto break them and conduct genuine inquiry into what were once forbidden topics,such as human reproduction and the dissection of frogs. She observed that onceteachers were willing to accept alternative solutions then their students becamemuch more active and con� dent learners.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

180 J. Slay

The conclusions drawn from the work of these non-Western science educators,from Japan, India and Africa, are that they agree that science needs to be perceivedin a cultural context. They feel that there needs to be some form of examination,within a culture, of the con� ict between “scienti� c” and traditional concepts ofscience. Some have been able to link traditional belief and the understanding ofscienti� c concepts or performance of experimental tasks. Others have also shownthat science teachers’ world views and their traditional beliefs affect their teachingand thus their students’ learning.

Re� ections on this literature indicate an awareness of the issues faced whenteaching science across cultures, and Cobern’s methodology provided an avenuewhereby students’ conceptualizations can be determined and their problems pre-dicted. However, at this time there was no major body of research in scienceeducation that provided practical solutions to the issues being faced in the scienceclassroom.

Research published in 1999, however, shows a movement within science edu-cation that is beginning to consider the implications of cross-cultural work for thescience teacher. Several researchers deal with the issue of modern science, andscience education, as a subculture within Western society.

Ogawa (1999) views Western science as a foreign culture for non-Westerners, andrefers to Aikenhead’s (1996, 1997) metaphor of the “cultural border crossing” inpicturing the student from an indigenous background taking part in the process oflearning modern science. He explains that each culture has its own “personal”science and that it is dif� cult for some students to “cross” to the closed culture ofmodern science. He sees that a possible way forward in the non-Western scienceclassroom would be for modern science to be established as a “mirror”, a model forthe comparison of indigenous science, and from this model, multi-perspectivescience might be created within the classroom.

Jegede and Aikenhead (1999) have also looked at the implications of “crossingcultural borders” in science teaching. They agree that “multiperspective” (Ogawa,1999) or “collateral” learning (Jegede, 1995) is necessary for the acquisition of theculture of modern science as an indigenous student moves from his or her everydayworld to that of the science classroom. They de� ne collateral learning as the abilityto hold in long-term memory the sometimes unresolved con� ict of two explanationsof everyday phenomena. They suggest that this con� ict might be moved towardsresolution, with the learning made more “secure” for the student, by:

· contextualizing the science curriculum in the students’ daily lives;· employing culturally sensitive instructional strategies;· using native language science teaching;· acknowledging the contributions of non-Western scientists;· building bridges between the indigenous world view and that of modern science

by means of indigenous science knowledge and the comparison of the relativeepistemologies of the indigenous culture and modern science.

These authors feel that it is important to make border crossings explicit rather thanimplicit, with the science teacher taking on the role of the “cultural broker”.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Culturally Sensitive Science Education 181

Similar themes to those expressed by Jegede and Aikenhead (1999) can be foundin the work of Allen and Pewewardy (1999) in their research among NativeAmerican science teachers and learners. They identify the need to deal withwide-ranging con� ict caused by factors such as second-language learning of science,students’ concepts of their own “self-ef� cacy” in learning Western science, disem-powering pedagogies and apparently irrelevant and disconnected science curricula.

Some researchers have begun to explore the construction of new science curriculabased on non-Western frameworks. Hua et al. (1999) have explored the tenets ofTaoism and their implication for the construction of a holistic science educationcurriculum. Hammond (1999) has reported on the development of a sciencecurriculum in a multicultural population in California, based on the indigenoushorticultural knowledge of some of the South East Asian students’ families, and itsimplications for their learning.

Rodriguez (1999) has extended the role of the science education researcher, andthe science teacher educator, to that of “cultural warrior”. He notes that wide-rang-ing research evidence has been obtained on cultural issues evident in scienceeducation, but questions how this research has affected classroom practice orteachers’ pedagogies. He believes that it is important to deal head-on with theresistance to change in pedagogy, especially that experienced from new teachers whohave been “apprenticed” to old methods by their own school experience andobservation. He sees a need to use multiple theoretical frameworks in developingpedagogies, to acknowledge resistance to change among teachers and to developstrategies that will allow research results to become a catalyst to counter thisresistance.

Re� ections on Research Perspectives

My teaching context in Australia is one that is probably similar to many classroomsin the Western world. Many of the students come from a wide range of ethnicbackgrounds and, while the native religion and customs of their parents mayin� uence their home life, their life experiences are very “Western”. My class alsoincludes international students, largely from Asia. Many of these Asian studentshave received a “Westernized” form of education, especially in Hong Kong orSingapore.

I identify, as do Jegede and Aikenhead (1999), the need to cross “cultural borders”in my teaching and establish “collateral learning” (Jegede, 1995) so that studentscan hold on to two or more alternative explanations of a phenomenon in a securemanner. However, in the Australian multicultural classroom, Linkson’s concept ofa “knowledge space” is one that needs to be considered. It is highly unlikely that ourclassrooms contain just two alternative explanations of scienti� c concepts. It iscredible that students’ perspectives on science will be both objective and subjective.However, those who hold subjective beliefs on science may come from a wide rangeof backgrounds and their beliefs will vary quite considerably. Therefore, it is helpfulto consider the science classroom as a three-dimensional space where these beliefsmay be articulated and the relative epistemologies compared and contrasted.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

182 J. Slay

I have often tried to move away from the style of my own teachers and allow myclassroom or lecture to be a place where alternative explanations, or experiences ofscience and technology, can be brought and discussed. I have found it dif� cult toengender discussion, and have even found that my students have disliked my doingso. I remember, during my time in North Queensland, a student who told me thatI talked too much about China, my husband and children. There was also anotherwho claimed I was not “teaching properly” because I encouraged my students tocarry out research independently and bring back the answers to the class. When Ire� ected on what I was doing, I realized that I had tried to illustrate the applicationof physics to engineering, my husband’s profession. I had also tried to describe thelifestyle and expectations of the other cultures I had experienced, in the context ofscience classes and to encourage some independent learning. These commentscaused me, as an inexperienced teacher, to re� ect on the validity of my illustrationsand keep my science free from “subjectivity”. My reading has equipped me towithstand the comments of students who have been enculturated into an “objective”science and conservative pedagogy. I will be better equipped to encourage them toexplore the effect of their own culture on their own understanding of science.

Moving On

I carried out this literature review as part of my own search for research on the effectof culture on my students’ learning of science. I had experienced the need to createmy own Living Educational Theory (Whitehead, 1989) and to � nd a solution to theproblems I experienced in my own teaching and with my students’ learning. I nowhave some ideas about how I can improve my own practice since, with Whitehead(1989), I have been able to acknowledge myself as a “living contradiction, holdingeducational values while at the same time negating them”.

For me the end of the research is therefore just an end to one cycle of creating myLiving Educational Theory and the beginning of the next. More cycles will allowmore “moving on” to seek new understanding and other means by which to improvemy practice as a teacher.

Address for Correspondence: Jill Slay, University of South Australia, School of Computerand Information Science, D3-21 Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia 5095, Australia.

References

AAAS (1989) Science for all Americans: A Project 2061 Report on Literacy Pools in Science,Mathematics and Technology. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancementof Science.

AIKENHEAD, G. (1996) Science education: border crossing into the subculture of science. Studiesin Science Education, 27, pp. 1–52.

AIKENHEAD, G. (1997) Towards a First Nations cross-cultural science and technology curriculum.Science Education, 81, 2, pp. 217–238.

ALLEN, N.J. & PEWEWARDY, C. (1999) Avoiding cultural imperialism in science education. Paperpresented at a pre-conference workshop of the Annual Meeting of the National Associationfor Research in Science Teaching: Boston.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

Culturally Sensitive Science Education 183

CHAVEZ, L. (1994) Demystifying multiculturalism. National Review, 24, September.COBERN, W.W. (1991) World View Theory and Science Education Research. NARST Monograph no.

3. Manhattan, KS: National Association for Research in Science Teaching.D’SOUZA, D. (1995) The crimes of Christopher Columbus. [Online: accessed 17 July 1998].

URL: , http://www.cyad.com/cgi-bin /Upstream/Crimesof ChristopherColumbus.htm . .GEERTZ, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.GIROUX, H.A. (1990) Curriculum Discourse as Postmodern Critical Practice. Geelong: Deakin

University Press.GOOD, R. (1995) Comments on multicultural science education. Science Education, 79, 3,

pp. 335–336.HAMMOND, L. (1999) The Southeast Asian school garden: incorporating community knowledge

in an elementary school science curriculum. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of theNational Association for Research in Science Teaching, Boston.

HODSON, D. (1993) In search of a rationale for multicultural education. Science Education, 77, 6,pp. 685–711.

HUA, H.P., CHANG, C.Y. & MACRAVEN, M.M. (1999) Taoism and its implications for scienceeducation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Researchin Science Teaching, Boston.

JEGEDE, O.J. (1994) African cultural perspectives and the teaching of science. In: SOLOMON, J. &AIKENHEAD, G. (Eds) STS Education: International Perspectives on Reform. New York:Teachers College Press.

JEGEDE, O.J. (1995) Collateral learning in the eco-paradigm in science and mathematics educationin Africa. Studies in Science Education, 25, pp. 97–137.

JEGEDE, O.J. & AIKENHEAD, G. (1999) Transcending cultural borders: implications for scienceteaching. Paper presented at a pre-conference workshop of the Annual Meeting of theNational Association for Research in Science Teaching, Boston.

JEGEDE, O.J. & OKEBUKOLA, P.A. (1991) The relationship between African traditional cosmologyand students’ acquisition of a science process skill. International Journal of Science Education,13, 1.

KEARNEY, M. (1984) World View. Novalto, CA: Chandler & Sharp.KIMBALL, R. (1990) Tenured Radicals: How Politics has Corrupted our Higher Education. USA:

Dee.LOVING, C. (1995) Comment on “multiculturalism, universalism and science education”. Science

Education, 79, 3, pp. 341–348.LYOTARD, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.MALINOWSKI, B. (1948) Argonauts of the Western Paci� c. New York: E.P. Dutton.OGUNNIYI, M.B. (1988) Adapting western science to traditional African culture. International

Journal of Science Education, 10, 1, pp. 1–9.OGUNNIYI, M.B., JEGEDE, O.J., OGAWA, M., YANDILA, C.D. & OLADELE, F.K. (1995) Nature of

worldview presuppositions among science teachers in Botswana, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeriaand the Philippines. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 32, 8, pp. 817–831.

OKEBUKOLA, P.A. & JEGEDE, O.J. (1990) Eco-cultural in� uences upon students’ concept attain-ment in science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27, 7, pp. 661–669.

RAKOW, S.J. & BERMUDEZ, A.B. (1993) Science as “ciencia”: meeting the needs of HispanicAmerican students. Science Education, 78, 4, pp. 669–683.

RAMPAL, A. (1994) Innovative science teaching in rural schools of India: questioning social beliefsand superstitions. In: SOLOMON, J. & AIKENHEAD, G. (Eds) STS Education: InternationalPerspectives on Reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

RODRIGUEZ, A.J. (1999) Courage and the researcher’s gaze: (re)de� ning our roles as culturalwarriors for social change. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for theEducation of Teachers in Science, Austin.

RONAN, C.A. (1978) The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 1. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4

184 J. Slay

STANLEY, W.B. & BRICKHOUSE, N.W. (1994) Multiculturalism, universalism and science edu-cation. Science Education, 78, 4, pp. 387–398.

TAYLOR, P.C. (1994) Collaborative Classroom-based Action Research: persuasion or coercion?Paper presented at Research in Science and Maths Education Conference. Burwood,Victoria, Australia: Deakin University.

TYLOR, E.B. (1871) Primitive Culture. London: John Murray.VAN MAANEN, J. (1995) An end to innocence: the ethnography of ethnography. In: VAN MAANEN,

J. (ed.) Representation in Ethnography. pp. 1–31, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.WALDRIP, B. & TAYLOR, P.C. (1995) Understanding students’ cultural background: a pre-requisite

of effective teaching. PNG Journal of Education, 31, 1, pp. 1–9.WHITEHEAD, J. (1989) Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, “How do

I improve my practice?” Cambridge Journal of Education, 19, 1, pp. 41–52.WHITEHEAD, J. (1993) The Growth of Educational Knowledge: Creating Your Own Living Educational

Theory. Collected Papers. Bournmouth, UK: Hyde Publications.YAGER, R.E. (1980) Crisis in Science Education. Technical Report no. 21. Iowa: Science Education

Center, University of Iowa.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f C

alif

orni

a, R

iver

side

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

4:49

08

Oct

ober

201

4