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Cultural Studies of Science Education

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01-09-2008 | Forum

Valuing indigenous knowledge: to call it “science” will not help

Authors: Charbel Niño El-Hani, Fábio Pedro Souza de Ferreira Bandeira

Published in: Cultural Studies of Science Education | Issue 3/2008

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Abstract

In this commentary on Brayboy and Castagno’s paper, published in this volume, we discuss, on the one hand, many points of agreement between their proposal of culturally responsive schooling for indigenous youth and El-Hani and Mortimer’s proposal of culturally-sensitive science education. On the other hand, we focus on a key disagreement, not only with Brayboy and Castagno, but with a whole body of literature on multicultural, postcolonialist, postmodernist education. The main point of disagreement lies in the fact that we are not sure that to broaden the concept of science so as to talk about “native science” or “indigenous science” is indeed the best strategy to attain a goal that we wholeheartedly share with Brayboy and Castagno, to value other ways of knowing for their own sake, validity, and legitimacy.

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Title: Valuing indigenous knowledge: to call it “science” will not help
Authors: Charbel Niño El-Hani
Fábio Pedro Souza de Ferreira Bandeira
Publication date: 01-09-2008
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Cultural Studies of Science Education / Issue 3/2008
Print ISSN: 1871-1502
Electronic ISSN: 1871-1510
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9129-6

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Other articles of this Issue 3/2008

Objectivity: the opiate of the academic?

In memory of Cliff Malcolm

Science education and worldview

How might Native science inform “informal science learning”?

Clifford Malcolm: glimpses of his South African legacy of hope

Indigenous knowledge in the science curriculum: avoiding neo-colonialism

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