Clifford Malcolm: glimpses of his South African legacy of hope

This article reviews the contributions of Cliff Malcolm while in South Africa during the period 1997–2005. It focuses on his contribution to the fields of science education, teacher education, learner-centered education, transformational outcomes-based education and HIV/AIDS education. In this paper we provide snapshots of his work as an academic, researcher, writer and humanist as he attempted to redefine scientific literacy to acknowledge the primacy of context and culture as mediating influences on meaningful learning, especially in rural communities. We make brief reference to his use of the Foucauldian conception of power to articulate the complementarity of power and energy as an expression of agency and action, the ultimate goal of a relevant science education. An important aspect of his empirical work with research units, universities and schools, was promoting an awareness of the foundational value of learner centred education which acknowledged the child as a ‘collective self’ rather than an ‘autonomous self’ as derived from the Western canon. Critical of imposing Western conceptions of science on Africa, he appropriates the indigenous concept of ‘ubuntu,’ to demonstrate the danger of dichotomising and essentialising scientific truth while simultaneously marginalising indigenous knowledges.