2004, Science and Cultural Process - Defining An Anthropological Approach To Science Education

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Science and Cultural Process:

Defining an Anthropological
Approach to Science Education
a b
Lorie Hammond & Carol Brandt
a
California State University at Sacramento , USA
b
University of New Mexico , USA
Published online: 28 Mar 2008.
To cite this article: Lorie Hammond & Carol Brandt (2004) Science and Cultural
Process: Defining an Anthropological Approach to Science Education, Studies in
Science Education, 40:1, 1-47, DOI: 10.1080/03057260408560202
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Studies in Science Education, 40 (2004) 1-47 1
Science and Cultural Process:

Defining an Anthropological Approach to

Science Education
LORIE HAMMOND
California State University at Sacramento, USA
CAROL BRANDT
University of New Mexico, USA
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this article is to define, through discussion and example, the
notion of an 'anthropological approach' to science education research, as well
as to advocate the potential contribution of such an approach to several
research domains and to questions of access and equity. While many science
education researchers in the last fifteen years have done work which one might
describe as 'anthropological', these writers come from a variety of camps and
may or may not think of themselves principally in this light. We hope that the
value of this article lies in opening a dialogue about what an 'anthropological'
approach to science research might be, as well as about how such an approach
might redefine the role which science education research, and science itself,
plays in the lives of teachers, students and communities which it affects.
What elements define an 'anthropological' approach to science education

research, and distinguish it from any other? This article emerges from the field
2 Lorie Hammond and Carol Brandt
of Anthropology of Education. As science education researchers, our main

concern is not with the anthropology of science, but rather with how an
'anthropological' focus on culture and cultural process can illuminate the
process of teaching and learning in science. Since science has traditionally
attempted to be objective and 'acultural,' a cultural look at science teaching
and learning has important epistemological implications that can be addressed
through research. Furthermore, since a cultural approach to science posits that
science learning is a cultural as well as a cognitive activity, then pedagogical

questions of who teaches science, how it is taught, and what ends it serves take
on new meanings that can also be addressed through research. Finally, an
anthropological approach to science education has methodological
implications for researchers who use ethnographic techniques as a way both to
conduct qualitative explorations about teaching and learning in science, and,
in some cases, to create a narrative place for the voices of community members
and students generally left out of the academic discourse of science.
This paper reviews a variety of research articles that address, in various ways
and degrees, epistemological, pedagogical and methodological explorations
that might be termed 'anthropological.' One purpose of this review is to
connect a large body of research focused on culture and science, to tease out
the elements that might define this research as 'anthropological,' and to
explore a few of the issues which this research challenges and illuminates. A
second and equally important purpose is to showcase culturally oriented
research as an approach that can be used to forward equity in science
education research, and through celebrating multiple perspectives, to challenge
the hegemonic role that Western science plays in a rapidly globalizing world.
Definitions of terms
Before outlining our criteria for choosing articles to be reviewed, it is

important to create some working definitions, for the purpose of this paper, for
widely used terms which are defined in different ways in different settings. The
first of these is 'anthropological,' which we use to refer to the lens, developed
in cultural anthropology, on human cultural process and on human ideas and
activities as cultural in nature. As stated above, our goal is not to create an
anthropological study of science. We are researchers in science and education,
not in anthropology. Rather, our goal is to build upon the approaches and
methods developed in the field of anthropology of education, a field that
focuses on how cultural process affects the teaching and learning of science or
An Anthropological Approach to Science Education 3
any other subject. Webster's definition of culture, 'to grow (micro-organisms)

in a specially prepared medium' (Webster, 1979: 444), is strangely relevant, in
that the focus of anthropology of education, and hence of science education, is
upon the process of enculturation into science, rather than on the definition of
the culture of science itself. Of course, epistemological assumptions about the
nature of science affect this process, and are hence considered, but with an
emphasis on how they affect pedagogy in science and its effects on students and
communities.
A second and central term is 'culture,' a word whose definition is highly

disputed in many fields. Spindler (1982, 2004), who is widely considered the
grandfather of Anthropology of Education, defines culture as 'patterns for
living, acquired through socialization and enculturation, and passed on and
modified by each generation.' Schooling is seen as cultural transmission, and
any 'material' learned is a cultural artifact chosen to create meaning within a
cultural system, taught through a pedagogical approach also inlaid with
cultural meaning. From this perspective, there are no 'a-cultural' bodies of
knowledge, and certainly no 'a-cultural' schools.
A third term requiring definition is 'ethnography.' While Webster (1979: 628)

defines this term as 'a branch of anthropology which deals descriptively with
specific cultures,' we use this term principally to refer to the complex of
qualitative research methods that enable 'descriptive' research, and hence
create an 'ethnographic approach' to science education research. Such an
approach generally focuses on rich description of cultural processes, gleaned
through extensive and triangulated data collection including some mix of
observation, interview, and examination of artifacts. Ethnographic approaches
require extensive time in the field, generally spent in 'participant observation,'
and create challenges to science educators, who generally lack the time and
resources associated with anthropological research. Hence, 'ethnographic'
science research often narrows its scope to the examination of bounded
cultural settings, such as those in a classroom or school garden, and employs
specific ethnographic methods, such as collecting narratives, creating case
studies, memory banking, and the like (Arellano et al., 2001; Nichols et al., in
press), which are adapted from the work of anthropologists.
Another semantic problem that is approached differently by different writers

and can lead to confusion is the definition of places and positions in the world
today. While some would refer to the 'developing' world, we reject this term
because it defines a one-way trajectory of development toward 'modern'
solutions. We have chosen to use the term 'first world' to refer to high
technology societies associated with European cultural influences (from which
Western science evolved), and 'third world' to refer to countries with less
technology and with non-Western traditions. The terms 'first' and 'third'
world, which evolved in response to the now defunct Cold War, are themselves
problematic, since the 'third' world is marked not only by separate traditions,
but also by a history of colonization. They are, however, the best terms we
could find. The authors use the term 'fourth world' to refer to indigenous,
minority cultures within 'third world' countries, which have been less subject
to colonization but are currently in danger of cultural and linguistic extinction,
since they occupy few power positions in even 'third world' countries. Another
term used by some researchers is 'First Nations' people. This refers to
indigenous peoples in first world countries, such as Canada, where the term
emerged (Aikenhead, 1997).
Outlining areas of research to consider
As stated above, the three major areas of science education research affected
by an anthropological approach are epistemology, pedagogy, and
methodology. Each will be discussed briefly here, in an attempt to define the
boundaries for research to be reviewed. Generally, researchers concerned with
an 'anthropological' approach to science education focus on one or on some
combination of these three research domains.
Epistemology
Erickson, a well-known anthropologist of education, comments:
'The subject matter of science involves culturally learned

presuppositions of ontology and epistemology that developed in
Western Europe over the past three hundred years. These
presuppositions may or may not be shared by the teacher and the
students.' (Erickson, 1986: 117)
As an anthropologist, Erickson observes that science evolved in the cultural

setting of Western Europe in a specific time period. This being the case, bodies
of scientific knowledge are based on assumptions that may not be universal.
This creates questions about what happens when this body of knowledge
encounters other bodies of knowledge about the physical world, which evolved
through other traditions. Is there a way to negotiate between such bodies of

knowledge? This raises both epistemological and practical research questions.
As Erickson points out, the worldview upon which Western science is based
may or may not be shared by teachers and students of today, who come from
a variety of backgrounds.
Are teachers and researchers aware of the cultural nature of the science they
teach? Aikenhead and Otsuji (2000) surveyed 59 teachers in Saskatchewan,

Canada, many of whom work with aboriginal students, and 310 science
teacher leaders in Japan. They concluded that few teachers in either country
view the enterprise of science or science teaching as a cultural phenomenon.
This is not surprising, since most science education research has also
approached cognition in science as an internal developmental process,
occurring in an individual, rather than as a socio-cultural process, occurring in
an historical, context.
Cobern (1996) calls attention to the predominance of research in science

education aimed at achieving conceptual change in students' understanding of
science. Cobern asserts that this research oversimplifies the ways in which
people think and learn, and assumes that they will follow Western, Piagetian
notions of development. 'Science needs to be joined with the other school
disciplines in the common goal of developing student world-views of which
science is one articulated component' (Cobern, 1996: 580). He points out that
studies on conceptual change are based on:
'...the constructivist notion that all learning is a process of personal

construction and that students, given an opportunity, will construct
a scientifically orthodox conception of physical phenomena if they
see that the scientific conception is superior to their pre-instruction
conception.' (Cobern, 1996: 581)
Cobern is critical of this approach because it assumes the superiority of one

conception over another, and provides no vehicles for processing relativist
perspectives. In addition, the assumption that an individual learns alone,
through participation in experiences that stimulate an internal developmental
process, contradicts socio-cultural views of learning (Hansen, 1979), in which
individuals are seen to learn in and through social contexts. 'Social
constructivism' has developed as an extension of the constructivist notion of
teaching and learning. This approach posits that learning occurs in a social
context, both because of its socio-historical origins, and because of the way in
which teachers and students construct knowledge dialogically. In this

approach, it is theoretically possible to negotiate multicultural knowledge
perspectives through dialogue. How to do so becomes the subject of
pedagogical research.
Pedagogy
T h e pedagogy of teaching science also involves presuppositions

about what is proper in social relations between leaders and
followers, experts and novices. These presuppositions also may not
be shared by the teacher and the students...' (Erickson, 1986: 117)
One way in which culture affects pedagogy is through language and

communication style. As Heath (1983) and others pointed out in discussions
of educating students from different cultural groups within Western society
(Boggs et al., 1985; Philips, 1983), differences in language, dialect, and
communication patterns can affect students' ability to learn in a variety of
complex ways. Erickson points out that when students, their communities,
and their teachers differ from each other in beliefs, social expectations, or
language, then communication involves border crossing and may induce
resistance. Teachers may or may not be aware of adaptations needed to enable
their students and their students' families to cross the border into their way of
thinking, and students and/or parents may or may not choose to do so.
Erickson suggests that:
'...all teaching can be seen as involving intercultural communication

of one sort of another. The teacher can be seen as a translator and
as an intercultural broker. It is the teacher's responsibility to operate
in such a bridging role on behalf of all students, regardless of the
range of cultural diversity among students in a given classroom.
That role of bridging, or intercultural mediation, is a complex one.
It is currently only beginning to be understood. In that complexity
appears to lie the roots of equity in pedagogy. This seems as true for
the teaching of science as it does for teaching in other subject fields.'
(Erickson, 1986: 123)
Unfortunately, researchers have often been divided into camps, one of which
studies constructivist learning, commonly with an eye to individual
development, the other of which studies the cultural context of learning, often
without consideration of how individuals learn differentially within that
context. Lately, the thinking of critical theorists, concerned with the 'social
reproduction' of knowledge (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), and of
constructivists, concerned with how individuals make meaning of their
environments, has been combined into new notions of how cultural processes
occur in learning environments. Levinson and Holland, in describing the
'cultural production of the educated person,' defines these cultural processes as
follows.
'Through the production of cultural forms, created within the

structural constraints of sites such as schools, subjectivities form and
agency develops... For while the educated person is culturally
produced in definite sites, the educated person also culturally
produces cultural forms.' (Emphasis in the original.) (Levinson &
Holland, 1996: 14.)
The work of Levinson, Foley, and Holland (1996) provides a window on how
individual actions and socio-cultural forces interact in education, including
science education.
Methodology
Most science education research has been quantitative, following the

experimental model familiar to scientists. However, since experimental
approaches are central to the culture of science itself, many socio-cultural
researchers of science education explore other research techniques that enable
them to uncover the 'hidden agendas' upon which scientific research is based.
Cultural anthropology evolved as a field devoted to understanding the 'other,'

initially defined as a bounded group living 'somewhere else.' The research
tools that evolved for understanding and transmitting the culture of exotic
groups of people include a rich set of ethnographic strategies for accurately and
systematically describing cultural patterns that were observed. In the latter
part of the twentieth century 'others' within first world countries became the
focus for some researchers, due to a concern for equity, prompted by the Civil
Rights movement, and an interest in new immigrant populations. The study of
anthropology 'at home' began to emerge, and was in some cases focused on the
familiar institution of the school. The challenge of studying schools is the
opposite of that faced by anthropologists who attempt to understand exotic
places by 'making the strange familiar.' The challenge is that of 'making the
familiar strange,' in order to see cultural patterns that are not initially visible
in an institution as familiar as schools. (Spindler & Spindler, 2000) Through

considering the 'hidden agendas' of these institutions, it becomes possible to
see how disenfranchised groups, such as girls, immigrants, and under-
represented minorities, might experience them. Whereas a quantitative
researcher might focus on concepts which a student knows before and after a
science experience, a qualitative researcher will focus on what goes on during
the teaching process itself, thus opening the 'black box' of the classroom and
observing how learning is transmitted, transformed, and/or resisted by

individual participants.
For some researchers, qualitative methodologies can themselves become tools

for equity and change. Through tools such as narratives, interviews,
collaborative case studies, and the like, participants' voices can become heard
in new ways. In some cases, those who would have been the 'subjects' in prior
research can collaborate in the research process itself. In other cases,
qualitative researchers explore new technologies, such as photography and
video, to gather data and to express the richness of classroom interaction, or
the integrity of traditional environments.
The significance of an 'anthropological' approach to science education
As stated earlier, this article has goals that extend beyond the definition of a
new field. Its purpose is to illustrate how anthropological research, occurring
in very different international settings, has the potential to influence science
education as a tool for equity, social and environmental justice, and counter-
hegemony. This is significant because education has become the primary
definer of success and access to power in the modern world. Hence what is
taught, by whom, to whom, and for what purpose has become a question of
paramount importance to researchers in any educational field.
'Around the world, modern schools are central to the social and
cultural shaping of the young... Institutions of mass schooling often
remove children from their families and local communities,
encouraging mastery of knowledges and disciplines that have
currency and ideological grounding in wider spheres... Schools have
served to inculcate the skills, subjectivities, and disciplines that
undergird the modern nation-state. No matter how the
knowledgeable person is locally defined, regardless of the skills and
sensibilities that count as indicators of "wisdom" and intelligence in
the home and immediate locale, schools interject an education
mission of extra-local proportions... School knowledges and

disciplines may, while offering certain freedoms and opportunities,
at the same time further draw students into dominant projects of
nationalism and capitalist labor formation, or bind them even more
tightly to systems of class, gender, and race inequality.' (Levinson &
Holland, 1996: 1)
From suburban youth in the United States, to villagers in the third or fourth
world, the education of the individual is inextricably linked to larger social
orders: family, place and community; the now multi-national state and its
economy; and the work places defined by these entities. Children born into
villages in third and fourth worlds, whose parents learned through
apprenticeship and oral stories rather than through schooling, now attend
schools that employ international World Bank curricula. Those who succeed
in these schools may enter world-class universities, where they will be educated
through the medium of English, and in Western science and other disciplines.
Simultaneously, suburban youth in the first world are experiencing an
increasingly demanding regime of standards and tests, which cause them to
compete with each other and with their international counterparts for a limited
number of desirable educational and career positions. Minority students,
immigrants, girls and students of various classes also experience this
competition and the sorting which it facilitates, in ways that ultimately
determine the opportunities they will have as adults. In short, twenty-first
century schools, like the societies they mirror, are defined by dynamic and
international forces. Science, along with mathematics and technology, is a
major definer and gatekeeper in this process. Hence, science education has
become inextricably bound to a variety of global forces that are
interconnected, political and economic, and rapidly evolving.
How does this complex, internationalizing situation affect the role of science
education research? For the past forty years, beginning with the Civil Rights
movement worldwide, many science education researchers, along with other
educators, have been studying issues of equity. In science education research,
there has been an effort to create science opportunities that meet the needs of
all students, rather than simply to create a scientific elite (American
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, 1993; UNESCO 1983).
Yet the movement toward 'science for all' has been strongly criticized by some
researchers who suggest that providing the same opportunity for all students
can lead to stratification and failure, rather than access and success, on the part
of some populations (Barton & Osborne, 2001; Lee & Fradd, 1998). What
kinds of research are most effective in sorting out science education approaches
that work in the complex realities defined by country, class, gender, race and
other intersecting factors? It is clear that we need research that not only sets
standards and measures outcomes, but also opens the 'black box' of what
happens inside of schools and classrooms during the teaching process itself. In
addition, we need research that can manage several levels of inquiry at once:
that can look not only at the students in a classroom, but simultaneously
include their families, their communities, their environments, and even the
larger socio-historical context in which they are situated. We suggest that one
type of research that can effectively address this situation is an anthropological
approach to science education, since it provides both lenses for focusing on the
cultural processes upon which our epistemologies and pedagogies are based,
and qualitative methodologies for describing complex cultural situations.
What research fits an 'anthropological' approach to science education?
In writing this article, we faced the daunting task of deciding what kinds of
work in the field of science education might be considered 'anthropological.'
After reviewing a variety of articles that self-defined themselves in this way,
and considering conventions in Anthropology of Education, as found in the
Anthropology of Education Quarterly, we came up with guidelines for
demarcating the body of literature that might qualify as anthropology of
science education over the past ten years (1993-2003). It is important to note
that while all of the authors discussed herein would consider themselves socio-
cultural in their approach, few have defined themselves as participating in an
anthropological approach to science education research, since this approach
has not been previously demarcated. Research articles and books were chosen
as examples of an anthropological approach to science education if they
fulfilled at least three of the criteria listed below. In reviewing these works,
emphasis was given to works that exemplified nearly all of the criteria.
1) The research uses ethnographic data collection methods, defined as

follows:
a) It employs inductive methods and is not experimental
b) It uses interviewing or documentation of dialogue among
participants
c) It uses participant observation or observations
d) It involves extensive contact with participants
2) Narratives of or dialogues among key participants are included and
thick description of context is developed.
3) Emphasis is on understanding the culture of the science classroom:

cognitive processes are situated within the context of school and
classroom culture.
4) The research offers a detailed discussion of the social and cultural
context of the study, and often of its economic, political, and/or
historical context, and does not stop at the classroom walls.
5) The research includes some discussion of how race, ethnicity, gender,
economic status, and language contribute to cultural processes of

learning; and/or how diversity (or lack thereof) is important to
understanding the socio-cultural structure of the classroom.
6) The position of the researcher is revealed and his/her role in
interpreting or representing the data is offered (i.e., the stance is
reflective).
7) The research is holistic in nature. It gives the reader a broad view of the
people, context, and cultures that are involved in the social reproduction
of an educational system and of knowledge within that system.
Research survey taxonomy
In writing this article, we attempted to survey a variety of research sources,

including books and articles, and to use as much international work as
possible. As active members of the National Association for Research on
Science Education, and of the Equity Committee of this organization, we began
by looking at the work of presenters we had encountered there. We then
reviewed ten years of articles in two major science education journals: the
Journal of Research in Science Education (JRST) and Science Education,
looking for articles which met the cultural criteria listed above. We also
considered ten years of the Anthropology of Education Quarterly (AEQ),
looking for articles that related to science or mathematics education. Finally,
and importantly, we reviewed the six years of articles from the International
Journal of Science Education (IJSE) that we could access (1997-2003). While
we had trouble accessing as many international journals as we would have
preferred, we placed special attention on international articles that appeared in
all of the above journals. In addition, we did an extensive Internet search for
work related to science and culture. This search yielded many of the sources
listed as 'other' on the chart below. Most were international.
Through the journal review, three categories of articles which fit the above
criteria emerged: 1) articles which deal with the culture of science in schools,
2) articles which deal with the impact of science education on disenfranchised

groups 'within' American or 'first world' societies, such as minorities, women,
or working class youths, and 3) articles which deal with international and
indigenous issues as they affect science education outside of the first world and
among indigenous people in any country. These three categories provide the
structure of our discussion and frame our presentation of ethnographic studies
in science education. The following table sums up the numbers of articles
found in each journal that met the criteria mentioned above.
Taxonomy of Anthropological Articles by Journal (1993-2003)
Type of Article JRST Science AEQ USE Other

Education sources
I. Culture of science/In schools 15 6 5 0 4
II. Science and disenfranchised

groups within first world society 14 5 1 1 5
(women, minorities, immigrants,
working class...)
III. International/post colonial

issues in third world countries 4 4 2 9 13
and/or indigenous issues with
Western science
Total articles per journal 33 15 8 10 22
I. STUDIES IN THE CULTURE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
'Education today faces the perennial challenge of improving the

quality of teaching and learning in schools...Yet most educational
innovations have failed when used in "everyday" classrooms. One
reason for this pattern of failure is that context and cognition are not
being considered together in developing, researching, disseminating,
or using educational innovations. Mainstream educational
developers and researchers, using positivist lenses, have primarily
focused on cognitive issues, what Erickson (1986) has called "taught
cognitive learning," and have largely ignored context. They have
had cognition without context. Educational anthropologists, using
interpretivist lenses, generally operating outside the mainstream,
have focused primarily on the contexts of education, and usually

have not addressed "taught cognitive learning." They have had
context without cognition. This historical separation of context and
cognition has been a contributing factor to the less than successful
approaches to educational innovation.' (Jacob, 1997: 3)
A central goal of an anthropological approach to science education is to

eliminate the separation between cognition and context in educational

research. This is a major shift in thinking. To reposition cognitive science
knowledge and knowledge acquisition within a socio-historical context is a
huge task, given the self-conscious history of science as an a-cultural field. Yet
not to do so, in the politicized, multi-cultural, and internationalized contexts
in which science is taught and practiced, is to ignore the forest in order to study
the trees. On the other hand, as Jacob states, it is not enough to focus on the
context of science education and to forget the importance of science as a
rigorous and systematic field of study. The purpose of this section is to look
at the various approaches and theories that researchers attempting to consider
the relationship between culture and context in science classrooms have
developed.
Before we begin, it is important to note that great inconsistencies exist between

the culture of science in classroom settings and that of science in the 'real
world,' where scientists assume roles as different as basic researchers in labs,
oil drilling engineers, or physicians, to name but a few. While the constructivist
movement in science teaching presents a case for teaching science 'as it is done
by scientists,' school science creates an idealized and over-simplified view of
scientific work, usually consisting of a formulaic 'scientific method' through
which students solve problems. This idealized view supports the notion of
cognition out of context, as if scientists work separately from societal
pressures, forwarding 'theories' of how the world works with no connection to
or responsibility for their application. To define the culture of science is a task
beyond the confines of this paper. However, to understand its complex and
varied nature, in and out of school, is important in considering the culture of
the science classroom, as it is, or might become.
In this section, as in those that follow, we have two goals. The first is to survey
work that has been done in the last ten years in a particular area. The second
is to showcase work that provides examples, either theoretically or
methodologically or both, that might guide others who would attempt to study
culture and context in classrooms.
Using qualitative research techniques to study life in schools
Some ethnographic research in science classrooms has grown out of the

'teacher belief research agenda, which, due to its focus on how teachers think
and feel about their work, has naturally carried researchers into qualitative
methodologies. Examples of such research is that of Helms (1998), who looks
qualitatively at high school science teachers' identity and sense of self, and of
Squire et al. (2003) who consider the way in which teachers' beliefs and goals,
local constraints, and students' goals affected four teachers' use of an on-line
science curriculum. In these pieces of research, ethnographic techniques enable
researchers interested in school reform to examine in detail the contexts in
which it occurs, and hence to appreciate how complex it is to accomplish
change. The anthropological nature of their work is defined by the extensive
use of qualitative methodologies, which enable the reader to see into the
classroom, and experience what goes on.
Some studies extend this type of ethnographic work beyond the classroom, into
the general culture of the school. In Munby et al. (2000), the researchers
consider how a reform-minded ninth grade science teacher is constrained by
school culture. Similarly Vesilind & Jones (1998) look critically at science
within the culture of school reform, where it is commonly assumed that 'teacher
leaders' will bring reforms to the rest of their school community. These authors
provide an in-depth window into what it really means to expect teachers to
'lead' their colleagues. Their research includes descriptions of innovations
which two teacher leaders employed at their schools, such as involving parent
volunteers in the science programme, creating science kits, giving public science
events, and working within administrative notions of reform. The power of
using ethnographic techniques, such as observation and interview, is exemplified
in this article, in that one can see 'close up' how reforms become textured in
local settings. 'For teachers to lead each other is a goal different from most
management models of leadership,' the authors state (Vesilind & Jones, 1998:
774). This article produces a close-grained portrait of teacher-led reform that
researchers who advocate 'distributed leadership' in science reform need to
understand. Science education researchers have, like other educational
researchers, long attempted to improve teaching in schools. Cultural studies
contribute a greater understanding of the complex ways in which institutions
resist change, an understanding long held by anthropologists.
For both Piburn & Baker (1993) and Bruce et al. (1997), ethnographic
methods are employed as assessment tools. Piburn and Baker gather rich data
concerning young children's attitudes toward science by interviewing

kindergarten through second grade students. Similarly, Bruce et al.
demonstrate that an evaluation study of a large, federally funded project was
enriched through the use of ethnographic techniques such as observations,
interviews, and surveys.
One way to analyze the culture of science teaching is to study how people are
initiated into the institution. Abell & Roth (1994) describe the way in which
a student teacher who is enthusiastic about science counters anti-science trends
in her school and becomes a change agent while still a novice in the field.
Rodriguez (1998) uses a variety of ethnographic techniques—video,
observations, participant observation, field notes, interviews, and dialogue—to
examine resistance among pre-service science teachers. The stance taken by
Rodriguez is both ethnographic and critical and is part of a reform agenda,
which he has named 'Socio-Transformative Constructivism (STC).' His reform
combines a social justice political perspective with the pedagogy of
constructivism. In this study, he analyzes how mainstream pre-service teachers
resist this reform agenda, in an effort to understand and overcome the
challenges inherent in creating equity-oriented teachers.
Other reformers who assume a critical ethnographic stance toward science

education are Costa (1993, 1995) and Hayes & Deyhle (2001). Costa applies
categories developed by anthropologists Phelan et al. (1991) to analyze
patterns in secondary school student adjustment between similar or differing
worlds of home and school. Through a series of case studies, Costa provides
rich descriptions of how students' positionings in relation to school science
correspond to the similarities or differences between the worlds of family and
those of school. Costa's research is based on rich description, but is augmented
by offering implications for both local practice and broader policy.
Hayes & Deyhle observe 'micro-level, moment to moment interactions' (2001:

241) in four, fifth, and sixth grade classrooms in each of two schools, one with
affluent, the other with low, socioeconomic populations of students. Their
ethnographic research contradicts common assumptions concerning both types
of schools. They found that teachers in affluent schools did not follow the
constructivist teaching practices most advocated in science education research,
due to their preoccupation with educating students in academic skills in order
to pass standardized tests. Simultaneously, they found that teachers in low-
income schools were more concerned in engaging their students through
relevant curricula, and less concerned about test results. The authors challenge
their audience to consider whether the relevant, but less 'academic' curricula in
the low-income schools were a good choice, since they increased engagement
with science, or a bad choice, since they might perpetuate the social
reproduction of poor academic achievement within low-income groups. This
study is an effective demonstration of ethnography's ability to observe 'what is'
in contrast to 'what is supposed to be.' It also reintroduces the theme of how
difficult it is to balance context and cognition in teaching science. The high-

income school's emphasis on cognition created a disembodied, non-
constructivist curriculum, but accomplished the goal of transmitting cognitive
information. In contrast, the low-income school accomplished the short-term
goal of active student engagement, while ignoring long-term test results.
All of the above research is anthropological as a result of its ethnographic

methodology. It should be noted, however, that this methodology in itself
carries researchers into arenas of school critique and reform. Opening the
'black box' of daily life in schools and classrooms generally reveals 'hidden
agendas' which illustrate why traditional interventions to improve schools are
difficult to achieve and to sustain.
Practice theory and other theoretical approaches
Qualitative research on classroom cultures, as an emerging field, has drawn on

a variety of theoretical frameworks. For example, Moje (1995) uses
sociolinguistic analysis while Van Sickle & Spector (1996) use a symbolic
interactionist framework. One particularly promising theoretical base for
studying the culture of schools is 'practice theory' (Lave, 1993). Eisenhart
(1995, 1996, 2000) is a well-recognized anthropologist of education who has
applied this approach to science education. This approach attempts 'to
consider together the insights of constructivists and sociologists of science'
(Eisenhart, 2000: 43). Generally, Eisenhart argues, 'constructivists view
science as a socially and experientially produced set of ideas about how the
natural world works.'
'In contrast, sociologists of science, along with some feminists and

anthropologists of science view science as a set of historically and
politically compelled ideas... As such, science is neither a fixed body
of knowledge nor an empirically tested set of good ideas but a
"technology" that tends to advance the interests of the historically
powerful...' (Eisenhart, 2000: 44)
Eisenhart's practice theory 'focuses on the ways in which individuals and

groups fashion (the social constructivist part) and are fashioned by (the
sociology of science part) social, political, and cultural discourses and
practices' (2000: 44). Eisenhart's work uses ethnographic techniques to
describe both contexts within science education and science workplaces, and
individual stories experienced by players within these worlds. She then
illustrates how individual histories, attitudes, and identities of participants can
enable them to rewrite what appear to be pre-determined stories. Eisenhart

states that: 'Until recently, few educational anthropologists have given serious
consideration to conceptualizing how individuals...inventively contribute to
cultural continuity or change' (1995: 3). An ethnography of two individuals
working in the same non-profit environmental organization is used to elucidate
how each crafted his/her own story as a result of the previous experience they
brought to the situation, their motivation, their orientation, and a complex of
other factors. Through practice theory, Eisenhart argues that each individual
within a culture of science creates his/her own story within its boundaries.
'They are neither simply soaking up, like a fax, what is presented to
them, nor are they simply playing whatever tunes comes to them for
the pure enjoyment of it, like a jazz player. The stories they use are
mediational devices that enable certain kinds of newcomer
experiences and disable others; they affect how the newcomers are
treated by others, and they anticipate the kinds of identities available
to them within the organization.' (1995: 20)
Several other researchers, like Eisenhart, use 'practice theory' to describe how
individuals and cultural contexts interact in a variety of science settings.
Carlone (2003) looks at how students and teachers define achievement in an
innovative physics curriculum at a high school, and concludes that meanings
within the classroom are shaped by meanings outside the classroom. Buxton
(2001) analyzes the culture of science in a lab at a research university, and
questions how accurately our portrayal of the culture of science in classrooms
matches 'real' science as it occurs in the laboratory. Finally, Hepburn &
Gaskell (1998) compare subject communities teaching high school science, and
suggest that teachers' approaches are an outgrowth of the communities of
practice from which they emerged.
We argue that practice theory provides an important advance in creating an

anthropological approach to science education research. This theory challenges
the boundaries of traditional ethnography, in a manner parallel to current
work in the field of anthropology, by focusing not only on cultural context, but
also on specific and variable ways in which culture acts itself out through
individuals, and is changed by them. By looking at individual adaptations to
and of cultural structures, practice theory illustrates how individuals achieve
agency even in structured contexts, without losing sight of the complex of
factors that determine these contexts. 'Practice theory explores how individual
and group cultures are formed in practice, within and against larger societal
forces and structures. These social structures provide the (tacitly understood)
frameworks that govern the functioning of social institutions, including
schools and other educational settings...' (Buxton, 2001: 389).
Tobin et al. (1996, 1997), Roth (1995, 1997), and Roth et al. (2002) also cite
Lave (1993), and her emphasis on practice as a starting point to research
culture in science. However, Roth and Tobin theorize teaching and learning in
science by focusing on the dynamics among the participants, tools, rules and
context in which the individual (or social group) is embedded, and how they
each mediate human activity. In their use of 'activity theory' (Leont'ev, 1978),
Tobin and Roth focus on the co-generative cognitive processes that are
involved at the micro-level of student-teacher interactions: tasks, gestures,
conversation, and movement. Tobin and Roth use extensive ethnographic
methods in their research, and unlike other ethnographers, typically include
interventions to launch reform initiatives in classrooms. There are many
parallels among the work of Tobin, Roth, and Eisenhart, since each researcher
attempts to merge critical theory with ethnographic description. A key
difference is that Eisenhart's 'practice theory' emphasizes the agency of the
individual in redefining a set social sphere, whereas Tobin and Roth focus on
the dialectical tensions between a person's power to act (agency), and the
human, material, and symbolic structures that mediate agency (Sewell, 1992).
In contexts such as poor urban high schools, access to resources, cultural
capital, divisions of labour, and institutional barriers act themselves out in
complex, moment-to-moment settings.
The evolution of practice and activity theories in science education parallels

similar trends toward merging critical theory with participant observation in
educational anthropology in general. The anthology The cultural production
of the educated person, edited by Levinson, Foley & Holland (1996) provides
many examples of this approach in the teaching and learning of various
subjects. It is important for researchers who take an anthropological approach
to science education to note the theoretical advances in critical anthropology,
which enable researchers not only to describe what they see, but also to frame
it in larger socio-historical and economic realities. Both practice and activity

theories recognize the forces that mediate against equity and change, but use
detailed ethnographic techniques to tease out the ways in which individuals
and groups can resist these forces to create liberated 'lifespaces' within
complex societies. Their work sets the stage for our next section, which
focuses on science education for disenfranchised groups within modern
societies.
II. OUTSIDERS WITHIN: USING ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES

TO RESEARCH FOCUSED ON WOMEN, MINORITIES, IMMIGRANTS,
WORKING CLASS, AND OTHER DISENFRANCHISED STUDENTS
If practice theorists and other researchers of social interaction have helped us

to see how science operates as a culture within classrooms, they have also set
the stage for researchers whose focus is on how science education operates in
classrooms with learners different from the mainstream and, in most cases,
from their teachers. Such classrooms are an obvious focus of an
anthropological approach to science education, since the classrooms
themselves are cross-cultural experiences. In these classrooms, questions about
the universality of accepted science pedagogy and curricula are raised, and a
variety of adaptations proposed.
'If education is about expanding upon the knowledge of life world

experiences that learners bring to situations, then a universal image
of science education is not possible. Science education must be
contextualized and must be linked to the life world experiences of
learners.' (Kyle, 2001: xvi)
The importance of this statement cannot be overemphasized. An overarching

theme, which runs through studies in science education with various minority
groups and is expanded in section III in our discussion of international science
education, is that 'science for all' does not mean the same standardized
treatment of science education in all settings. Whereas mainstream reform
agendas in the later 1990s and early 2000s have focused on standardization
and improvement of test scores on standardized tests, anthropological research
tends to focus on the local, on community 'funds of knowledge' (Moll et al.,
1992), and on links between science and social and environmental justice.
This section deals with anthropological approaches to science education

research that focus on disenfranchised groups, which we are calling the
'outsiders within.' One might ask 'Why outsiders?' Western science as an

academic institution emerged from a European philosophical tradition, and
until the advent of the 20th century was almost the sole domain of white males
in powerful positions in first world countries. Despite an increase in diversity
among participants in scientific research and teaching, science as a privileged
and exclusive practice defines the context from which individuals and groups
might feel alienated by various degrees of separation. 'Within' refers to the
positioning of these groups within first world countries. In our next and final
section, we will deal with research settings outside these countries, or in
indigenous positions in any country.
Since anthropology has historically dealt with cross-cultural situations, the

increasingly cross-cultural nature of life in first world countries, due to
immigration and other factors, has caused many anthropologists to focus their
attention on their own cities and hinterlands. Much of the work in
anthropology of education (Heath, 1983; Philips, 1983; Boggs et al., 1985) has
focused on how diverse groups experience school. Heath's seminal book, Ways
with words, is at the forefront of a number of works that explore how
linguistic, class, and cultural factors from students' homes affect their abilities
to learn. These studies argue for a 'relevant' curriculum that employs both
language patterns and content linked to students' home experience.
In science education research, qualitative and ethnographic methodologies,

such as case studies and narratives, are becoming increasingly common in
journals such as the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST), which
traditionally published quantitative, experimental studies. One factor may be
a growing concern on the part of researchers with how increasingly diverse
populations relate their own lives to science. This concern has led to both to
the inclusion of more qualitative, ethnographic methods, and to a shift in
research goals from cognitive development alone to more consideration of the
context in which cognition occurs, a recurring theme in this paper.
Many researchers have looked at girls and science, with an emphasis on the
experience of minority girls. Brickhouse, Lowery & Schultz (2000), for
example, present narrative research about how African American young
women relate to science. Similarly, Parsons (1997) contrasts how African
American high school girls view African American and White scientists,
whereas Seiler (2001) critically analyzes the culture within a group of African
American students in an inner city high school science lunch group. In all of
these cases, the advantage of an anthropological approach to research, which
focuses on individuals within a cultural process, is that it enables researchers

and their readers to enter 'lifeworlds' that may be foreign to their own, and to
see how diverse students construct their notions of science.
Angela Calabrese Barton, an important researcher in advocating science

education for disenfranchised groups, co-edited with Kenneth Tobin a special
three issue volume of JRST devoted to urban science, which was published in
October through December, 2001. These issues include many articles which
are not only 'urban' but also 'anthropological' in their commitment to rich,
ethnographic description and to an understanding of cross cultural processes.
In another piece, 'Learning from Miguel,' Barton & Yang (2000) provide a
narrative description of a Puerto Rican homeless father in New York City, who
is known in his neighborhood as a herpetologist, yet has never had access to
school science. Barton illustrates how school science seemed to have little to
do with Miguel's deep interest in the natural world.
'He (Miguel) was drawn to a way of explaining the world around

him that went beyond books. The world—the turtles, rats, snakes,
and other creatures he studies—was real life. However, the science
to which Miguel referred was always outside of schools, always a
part of his own research into the world around him... When he met
with his counselor at the beginning of his freshman year to discuss
his high school curriculum, his counselor steered him toward the
vocational track. "None of my teachers ever suggested college, let
least careers in the sciences to me or any of my classmates"... In
retrospect, Miguel believed these actions on the part of his teachers
and his counselors only reinforced his belief that school science and
scientific careers were not realistic options for youth "from the
hood'". (Barton & Yang, 2000: 879)
In Teaching science in diverse settings (2001), Barton & Osborne create a

theoretical position and share the research of colleagues concerned with
finding effective ways to teach science to disenfranchised learners. While much
of the work in this book is ethnographic, Barton's work uses descriptive
narrative as a steppingstone for critical analysis of both access to and the
purposes served by science in contemporary society.
'(Marginalized discourses) are brought together because they

combine a questioning of the foundational canons composing
science as a discipline and science education as a practice with an
understanding that the intersections of race, class, and gender, and

other forms of identity labeling, frame access to knowledge and
power.' (Barton & Osborne, 2001: 1)
Science for All Americans, produced by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1989, has served as a guideline for mainstream
equity in science reform in the United States. Barton and Osborne challenge
three assumptions central to this document: 1) that schools are historically
meritocratic, as opposed to reproductive of traditional race/ethnicity, class, and
gender inequalities; 2) that minorities and women operate at a deficit, and need
to gain important knowledge which is held by white, middle class males; and
3) that students will choose to adopt mainstream values and hierarchies when
informed of their value. They argue that in order to create meaningful science
education for marginalized students, it is necessary to rethink these
foundational assumptions and to entertain the notion that one standardized
approach to science education does not fit all. They then ask whether
differences in perspective and knowledge base, which emerge from cultural
differences, are 'something to be fixed or changed,' or are 'fundamentally at
the root of the democratic process in our society?' (Barton & Osborne, 2001:
26) If difference is to be celebrated and built upon, then science education
reform can be described as follows.
'It does not mean remaking those children into our own images. It
involves remaking schooling and science in their often multiple
images.' (Barton & Osborne, 2001: 13)
The notion of contextualizing and modifying science education in local

settings to meet the needs of specific populations is a major departure from
the standards-based notion of educational equity that is current in the
United States. If specific populations need specific interventions, then much
research is needed to discern the type of instruction appropriate to these
students or groups. This requires ethnographic techniques, often applied
not only by researchers, but also by practitioners, parents, community
members, and students, who must understand the cultural processes
occurring in their settings before they can engage in improving them. For
many critical or action researchers, ethnographic description is not an end
in itself, but is rather a first step in action research focused on making
science education better. The work of Gilbert & Yerrick below is a case in
point.
Socio-transformative constructivism (STC)
Gilbert & Yerrick (2001) used ethnographic techniques, including observation,

focus groups and interviews, to gather the story of life in a lower track earth
science courses a working class community in the rural/suburban South of the
USA. Their research enables us to see lower track students through the eyes of
their teacher, the teacher through the eyes of his students, and the institution
of the school through the eyes of sensitive researchers. These perspectives
corroborate to create a picture of a self-perpetuating system, in which 'the
quality of science instruction was subverted through a process of negotiation
between students and teachers in the context of low expectations and the
school culture' (Gilbert & Yerrick, 2001: 574). Although tracking was
instrumental in the creation of a limited learning environment, the authors
point out that 'simply detracking schools will not bring positive results
inasmuch as the artifacts and beliefs that keep such structures in place are still
manifest' (Gilbert & Yerrick, 2001: 574). It is striking to note that these
artifacts and beliefs are held not only by administrators and teachers, but also
by the students themselves. By bringing us into the world of the lower track
classroom, the authors effectively communicate the complex web of factors
that create and recreate marginalized learning environments for some students
within a school that provides success for others.
Neither Gilbert nor Yerrick were content to remain descriptive ethnographers

chronicling educational experiences that did not work. Both transformed
themselves into action researchers, determined to create a better experience for
working class youths. Yerrick accepted the challenge of teaching a parallel
earth science course himself the next semester, and Gilbert (2002) applied
Rodriguez' reform programme, Socio-Transformative Constructivism (STC),
to a similar setting. STC is a socio-cultural approach to constructivist science
teaching reform which applies four related elements, themselves highly
cultural, to the teaching process. These elements are 1) dialogic conversation,
2) authentic activity, 3) meta-cognition, and 4) reflexivity. Gilbert worked with
a high school teacher in a diverse, low income, desert community in the
Southwestern United States, to create and teach a health and wellness class as
a science elective. This class was designed to relate to health issues in students'
lives and to empower students through the reflective processes that make up
STC. He concluded that these strategies worked to engage and empower
students, and that the STC approach was able to counteract the cycle of failure
which he observed with similar populations in previous research.
Ethnography and action research in Hawaii
Chinn's work with Asian American women and Native Americans in Hawaii
follows a similar pattern to Gilbert's (2002), in that she engages in both
ethnographic dialogue and action research. Chinn (2002) uses narrative
methodology to explore the perspective of Chinese and Japanese Asian
American women in Hawaii, often stereotyped as 'model minorities,' in the
process of becoming scientists and engineers. Chinn focuses on the competing

cultural narratives that emerge when these women describe their lives through
in-depth interviews. Chinn identifies traditional Confucian beliefs, which
encourage women to be compliant and subservient to men, as a narrative
which makes it difficult for Asian women to compete with men in
individualistic, competitive science fields. Chinn asserts that 'contradictory
ideologies interfered with the construction of unitary self-identities' for these
women' (Chinn, 2002: 316).
Chinn, like Gilbert, demonstrates through her interviews with Asian women
that dialogue can be transformative in assisting students in negotiating
complex identities, and initiates reforms in which teachers 1) learn about the
cultural conflicts their students' experience, and 2) learn to dialogue with them
about these conflicts.
Whether or not they realize it, teachers who shape the social worlds
of students are cultural guides to the students and parents who enter
their domains ... However, teachers familiar only with mainstream
values and ideologies must be sensitized to their critical role as
cultural guides to students and families from nonmainstream
cultures. The narratives in this and earlier studies reveal that women
modified their understandings of social phenomena as they reflected
on past events in different social spheres... (Chinn, 2002: 318)
Incorporating community 'funds of knowledge'
In addition to working with Asian Hawaiians, Chinn (2003) initiated an in-

depth professional development project that focuses on informing teachers
about traditional Hawaiian knowledge of the physical world and developing
science curricula that incorporate this knowledge. Teachers spend five days in
a field-based, cultural-science immersion led by Native Hawaiian teachers, and
set in a Native Hawaiian village. Chinn's project provides a model of using
two forms of accommodation to assist Native Hawaiians in science: 1) the

recognition that teachers must provide cultural dialogue for students caught
between worlds, and must learn about students' worlds as a first step in doing
this effectively, and 2) the incorporation, through teachers as curriculum
developers, of Native Hawaiian knowledge into science curricula as a way to
honour its status and make science more relevant for Native Hawaiian students
in K-12 schools.
Hammond (2001) also created a school-community garden project and field

house with Iu Mienh families in a California urban school as part of an action
research project aimed at empowering minority families by incorporating their
community 'funds of knowledge' into the school curriculum. This project was
part of a science centered school reform as part of the Bilingual Integrated
Science Curriculum Project (called BICOMP) that had the goal of creating
relevant science curricula for language minority students. The Iu Mienh, who
are members of a Southeast Asian hill tribe displaced from Laos by the
aftermath of the War in Vietnam, are subsistence horticulturists. They have no
traditional secular written language or previous experience with school. In the
context of an urban school, their knowledge was considered irrelevant, and
parent involvement was judged impossible, due to language and literacy
barriers. BICOMP enabled parents and grandparents to share their funds of
knowledge about horticulture through creating a heritage garden and field
house at the school site, in which science themes could be explored in the
context of a Southeast Asian garden.
In this research, anthropological techniques are applied at several levels. First,

the project involves co-research with parents and elders to record ethno-
botanical practices in community books for use with school children. Second,
teachers and researchers reflect on the cultural dialogue necessary to build a
science curriculum that integrates Iu Mienh funds of knowledge with state
science standards. Third, student teachers and teachers are involved in
activities through which they learn strategies and challenges for working with
language minority populations and build and test curricula appropriate to this
cultural setting.
In this time of outcome-based education, one might question what can be

gained from creating a traditional Southeast Asian garden at an urban school,
given that immigrant students must learn English and adapt to life in the
modern world of the United States. Yet we argue that this garden serves a
transformative function for displaced refugee families, a function which
extends science education into domains of cultural preservation and

reconciliation, and bonds them in unique ways to their school.
T h e key elements in such situations are that the generally

disempowered members...are able to re-define that situation on their
cultural terms, if only within a bounded space. It was our hope that
the Mienh house would become such a space, and for a few magic
hours and days, it did. At the end of one day, Kao and Yao
(Southeast Asian student teachers) stood by the house, looking on
the verdant Mienh demonstration garden, which now had knee high
rice and waist high corn. Yao said: "This is how a house should be.
This house makes you feel good." Everything visible from the door
of the house looked like a Lao village: a pattern of garden plots, well-
tended and green. It was hard to believe that the freeway droned in
the background, only fifty feet away, and that a small colony of
homeless people lived in the ravine beneath it. A visitor suggested
that one could pretend the freeway was a distant waterfall.
(Hammond, 2001: 992)
Hammond and her team of teachers, parents, and children co-invented a

'hybrid' science curriculum in the intercultural space of the Mienh garden and
field house. This space made it possible for Mienh parents and children to
access experiences in Western science. It also enabled Western teachers and
children to step into another world, learn Mienh gardening skills, and
participate in a cultural exchange in which another body of knowledge was
valued. By teaching science as an 'exchange' between two or more bodies of
knowledge rather than as assimilation process to Western science alone, this
project gave a voice to Mienh families whose knowledge was previously
disempowered.
Lessons learned from studies about disenfranchised learners and science
While science education research with minority and disenfranchised groups is

by definition local and specific, it has general implications that challenge
conventional epistemological, pedagogical, and methodological perspectives.
From an epistemological perspective, the incorporation of knowledge about

the natural world from both Western and non-mainstream sources reinforces
Barton & Osborne's (critical) perspective that 'science is a social activity and
involves understanding how human values and characteristics shape scientific

knowledge and understanding' (2001: 21). Although the process of science
must remain rigorous, and be as objective as possible, science must also be
recognized as a cultural act, reflective of the context in which it evolves. This
understanding is not acknowledged in national or international science
standards, which treat scientific theories as 'facts' that need to be memorized,
or even in constructivist reform agendas, which generally assume that students
do inquiry in order to 'correct' their misconceptions and come to universal

understandings (Cobern, 1996).
Pedagogically, researchers are challenged by the notion that science should be

taught in ways that engage local populations, including minorities, working
class youth, women, and others not traditionally successful in science. This
implies that 'science for all' should not be a process of making diverse children
fit our images, but of 'making schooling and science in their multiple images'
(Barton & Osborne, 2001: 13).
Methodologically, the diversity of populations in schools in virtually every

country necessitates an understanding of cultural process, since teachers and
researchers now experience different cultures on a daily basis, in ways similar to
anthropologists in the field. Ethnographic techniques can enable researchers to
see how students and teachers can unknowingly conspire to make learning
impossible, as in the case of Yerrick & Gilbert's working class youth; to
understand how students' cultural expectations of themselves might be discrepant
with the culture of science, as in the case of Chinn's Asian women; and to find
ways of incorporating traditional knowledge about the natural world into science
teaching, as in the case of Chinn's Native Hawaiians and Hammond's Iu Mienh
families. For most researchers concerned with equity, however, ethnography is
only the first step in creating change. A second and essential step is the design and
testing of action research reforms that enable minority or disenfranchised
populations to gain agency and power within science education contexts.
III. ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SCIENCE EDUCATION

RESEARCH IN INTERNATIONAL AND INDIGENOUS SETTINGS
A research story from South Africa
'Here in the Midlands of KwaZulu Natai, South Africa, we are

sitting beside the car in front of a High School we are working with.
Before us is a deep valley and green hills with sunlight slanting

through the morning mist. Tiny huts, some round, some square, are
dotted on the slopes, the smoke of morning fires wafting upwards
into the haze. Beyond the valley are private White-owned farms, but
the land here belongs to Zulu Tribal Authorities, and villagers live
and build on it by arrangement with the Chief. In the distance, small
boys follow cattle down to the streams, and muffled drum beats
sound dimly. Goats lie in the middle of the dirt road next to us and
young girls walk past carrying firewood on their heads. Just down
the hill, some other girls are filling plastic containers at a water
pump. Behind us the school is a rectangular block of concrete,
surrounded by a high fence and a locked gate, though there is little
in the school to steal... From the classroom nearest us, we can hear
the children responding in unison to their teacher, chanting a
definition she sees as important. We can't make out the words, but
the music and rhythm are familiar.' (Keane & Malcolm, 2003: 4)
Keane & Malcolm, in their science teacher education work in South Africa, ask
the question: 'relevant science education, but relevant to what?' (2003: 4).
What meaning do familiar canons have in the context described above? How
are the roles of researcher and science educator changed in this context, which
is situated simultaneously in colonialism, tradition, poverty, and environmental
concerns? What is the purpose of the curriculum, and whom does science
serve? In third world contexts, a plethora of questions face science educators.
The role of anthropology, seen as the art and practice of cross-cultural
exploration, can be a tool for addressing these challenges.
Keane & Malcolm assume an ethnographic approach, and begin their work by
exploring the community's sense of the current curriculum and of what they
would like science education to be.
T h e community was adamant that science education in the current

system offered little of value for them and their children. The
curriculum needed to be strongly connected to the community and
vice versa. Indeed, the science curriculum should be embedded in a
community development project, whereby students learned as a part
of community development and contributed to it. The curriculum
(should be) life itself, and the learning that occurred a part of life
within the community.' (Keane & Malcolm, 2003: 6)
The researchers began to explore what this would mean. They gave grade 10
students cameras, and asked them to take pictures of 'science in my life.'
Students took pictures of farming, animals, fixing TVs and cars, their
community, and the beauty of cabbages. They saw science and relevance
everywhere. However, these youths did not see broader contradictions which
interviews with adults revealed: the tension between 'connectedness and
isolation, optimism and hopelessness, participation and authority, equality and
hierarchy, traditional and modern, young and old, local and immigrant—that
work between people and within people' (2003: 8). Keane & Malcolm
pondered what to do, and decided that two things were needed to create a
balanced science curriculum. The first was to explore useful science knowledge
and skills that meet immediate community needs. The second was to 'to
expose, explore and maybe explode some of the beliefs, tensions, structures,
habits, ideas and ideals (including our own) that simmer in the community and
within individuals, and seem to limit personal and social development.'
However, they also noted that such a critical and dialogic curriculum would be
out of step with traditional schooling and with the existing skills of the
teachers, and might even be unpopular with those parents who expect schools
to teach from textbooks and prepare students for examinations.
The story told by Keane & Malcolm (2003) introduces elements found in
many researchers' work in science education in the third world and/or with
indigenous peoples. These issues include:
1) differing worldviews: the gap between school knowledge, as defined

by Western canons, and both traditional worldviews and the
technologies and skills relevant to solving pressing community
problems;
2) social and environmental justice: the abstract nature of school science
as information acquisition in the face of poverty, inequality, and
pressing environmental problems such as clean water or lack of food;
3) agency and power: the question of who should determine the
curriculum, and for what purpose, a question which exists in all
settings but is made more evident in third world settings;
4) the role of the researcher, who is often transformed from educator
and ethnographer to community developer and activist.
In this section, we shall discuss how a variety of researchers have dealt with
these questions. This research will be discussed in relation to our ongoing
themes of epistemology, pedagogy, and methodology.
Epistemology and science in the third world
The inevitable meeting between Western (colonial and post-colonial) and non-
Western (Eastern and traditional) ways of thinking in third world settings leads
to epistemological questions about the nature of science. For Ogawa (1995),
science itself needs to be reconceptualized in a relativistic perspective. He
claims that 'science for all' is always Western science for all, rather than one of
several approaches to science. To remedy this situation, he proposes an

approach that he calls 'multiscience.' This approach defines science as a
rational explanation of the physical world, which is 'relative to the community
of scientists who produced its knowledge' (Ogawa, 1995: 585). Such an
approach has been created within every society. Whereas Western science is
one approach, which is situated in the community that created it, indigenous
science is another approach, which exists in multiple forms. 'Indigenous
science is held by a specific cultural group, not by a specific individual' (1995:
585). Ogawa argues that each culture's approach to science carries with it not
only a body of information, but a particular process, or definition of
rationalism. At the same time, individuals experience 'personal science,' which
is their own particular worldview, affected by their own indigenous
background, religion, level of development, and many other factors. These
three types of science—Western, indigenous, and personal—together constitute
a 'multiscience perspective.'
Ogawa states that Western modern science is not the same as an indigenous
science for which Westerners have a particular affinity, 'but a theoretically
materialistic science, which is, so to speak, a kind of game open to anybody
who will obey its rules' (1995: 589). This game is foreign to everyone,
including Westerners, who have their own 'indigenous' and personal
experiences as do members of any other group. Western science must be
learned, and it can be learned by anyone who wants to play.
Ogawa's notion of 'multiscience' provides important perspective, yet raises

new questions. If 'Western modern science' is a game open to all, separate
from any culture, then how did it evolve? What is its relationship to Western
culture? And if every system of local knowledge has a 'particular process, or
definition of rationalism' within it, then what is the relationship between this
process and the 'game' of Western science? Ogawa implies that the two, or
multiple, systems co-exist side by side. Is this a dilemma for individuals who
espouse both systems, and 'live in two worlds?' Can discrepancies between
these systems be resolved, and if so, how?
George (1999, 2001) studied traditional practices and beliefs about health and
marine-related activities in the daily lives of a village in Trinidad and Tobago.
George participated in village life over a five-year period and constructed a
textured description of how villagers view self, other, classification,
relationship, causality, space and time. From her data, she drew the conclusion
that while similarities exist between traditional wisdom and Western science,
each knowledge tradition assumes a different approach. In general, '(Western)
science seeks to recognize a set of intrinsic, automatic, neurological, and

physiological mechanisms, (while) the traditional system proposes a
voluntarily managed set of physical behaviors and dietary prescriptions, guided
by knowledge' (George, 1999: 92). This difference seems to fit Ogawa's view
of indigenous and personal versus Western science. George argues that
students in Trinidad and Tobago are 'living in two worlds,' much like minority
students Costa (1995) describes in the United States.
Waldrip & Taylor (1999) use interview and case study methodologies to study
the worldviews of village elders and high school students in a developing South
Pacific island, which they call Kantri. Two important points frame this
research. The first is that it is common for people to juggle more than one
worldview, even among 'modern' educated people. Waldrip and Taylor
describe a colleague who states that he believes in evolution at work and
creationism at church. This perspective matches Ogawa's view that Western
science is only one of many modes in which people think. Waldrip and Taylor's
second point is that science education research concerned with conceptual
change, such as the work of Gilbert, Watts, & Osborne (1982), argues that
exploring students' prior knowledge is central to teaching science. In
indigenous contexts, this means exploring traditional community knowledge
as well as students' personal knowledge.
If traditional forms of knowledge are respected along-side Western science, as

parts of a complex 'multiscience,' then what is the power relationship between
these two forms of knowledge, and how are they passed on? In the past,
traditional knowledge was passed from elders to children through daily life
and storytelling, without need for formal schooling. However, as children all
over the world begin to attend schools, they learn Western science there and
have little time to learn from elders. In many cases, they are even physically
separated from their villages while they go to school. The problem of language
and cultural loss among such children is particularly intense when they come
from fourth world tribal groups who speak an oral language that is not
represented in school. In such a case, Thomson (2003) suggests that children
learn about everybody but themselves, while traditional bodies of knowledge

about the physical world, along with their language and culture, die with their
elders.
To remedy this problem, Thomson engaged in a community study of snakes in

Kenya's Rift Valley, which is 'well known by scientists for its fauna, flora and
notable as the cradle for human origins' (Thomson, 2003: 92). It is his
suggestion that science educators 'become active participants with regard to

real global concerns for extinctions: cultural, language and biological' (2003:
112). Thomson suggests that educators in third world countries not only help
their students to learn Western science, but actively work to record and
preserve local knowledge and to integrate it into science curricula. He also
suggests that local knowledge be preserved through local language, which is
itself endangered. Such a process involves collaborative research with local
people, including tribal elders, who are traditional keepers of this knowledge.
Another perspective is provided by Turnbull (1997), who suggests that we need

to 'decentre' Western science so that it becomes another set of 'local' practices
like any other. This view differs from Ogawa's notion of science as an a-
cultural 'game,' and suggests that Western science and other systems of
knowledge be mediated and negotiated as socio-historically created artifacts
and processes. Turnbull argues that: 'Science in the general sense of systematic
knowledge was never uniquely Western, having its origins in a wide variety of
cultures including Islam, India, and China' (Turnbull, 1997: 552). If one
accepts that several systems of science have developed, then Turnbull suggests
that two positions can be assumed. The first is an 'imperialist' position, which
asserts that Western science is superior in its rationality and methodology.
According to this position, 'any non-Western knowledge can only achieve full
status...by being absorbed into the Western canon, otherwise it must remain
mere tradition or belief (1997: 552). A second position is a 'localist' position,
in which multiple knowledge systems, all considered local, might learn to
coexist.
Turnbull suggests that in order to make this happen, we need to rethink what
knowledge is. Rather than treating it as a fixed representation, we need to look
at knowledge as performative. For knowledge to develop, Turnbull argues,
requires a space in which people, skills, local understandings, and resources are
gathered to create it. Turnbull describes several historical examples, including
the building of Chartres Cathedral and the Polynesian colonization of the
Pacific, in which a body of knowledge grew and prospered in a particular
space. In the present situation, when globalization is causing human cultural

knowledge of science and other subjects to come together, Turnbull suggests
that we need to create 'tertiary spaces' in which two bodies of knowledge,
which collide in a given setting, can negotiate and create a new and
unprecedented 'performance.'
The future for local knowledge traditions is...dependent on the

creation of a third space...in which local knowledge traditions can

be reframed, decentred and the social organization of trust can be
negotiated... Knowledge...will tend towards universal
homogeneous information at the expense of local knowledge
traditions... (unless) it is recognized as both representational and
performative... There is a future for other knowledge traditions
because, as the myth of science and progress collapses, so we become
more aware that diversity is the key to survival.' (Turnbull, 1997:
561)
Can Turnbull's 'third space' be created through alternative pedagogies that

encourage performative knowledge creation? Zembylas (2002), building on
Turnbull's approach, describes the development of science education in Cyprus
as an ongoing story of struggle between local and colonial, turned global
forces. He states:
'One clear lesson that can be learned... is the need to create spaces
in which the local can be performed together with the global.'
(Zembylas, 2002: 516)
Operationalizing 'multiscience' and other cross-cultural exchanges of

knowledge
How have researchers created pedagogies that reflect the relativistic

approaches to science described above? Ogawa suggests that courses of study
be created which enable dialogue between the indigenous and personal
perspectives on issues studied and the Western perspectives on the same topics.
Brandt (2004) created such an ethnobotany class at the University of New
Mexico, in which students studied a nearby community, and received lectures
and guided tours from local residents, as well as from university scientists.
Brandt describes how ethnobotany, the study of plants used in human cultures
for food, medicine, and material culture, is one way for students to explore the
epistemology of Western science and traditional ecological knowledge. In this

course, she encourages students to ask: What counts as 'science?' Whose
knowledge is valued? What knowledge can sustain our communities?
Anthropological in its approach, this course might be said to define a
'multiscience perspective' in that students gain a perspective from the
combined understandings of personal, indigenous, and Western science.
Aikenhead (1996, 1997, 2000) suggests that when indigenous worldviews

conflict with the assumptions of Western science, that science education be
modified to accommodate these views, and, in particular, that teachers must
understand First Nation students' experience with science as a kind of 'border
crossing' which must be acknowledged, understood, and assisted. Aikenhead,
who has done extensive work with First Nations people in Canada, proposes
a cross-cultural approach to teaching science and technology (Science
Technology and Society [STS]) which is:
1) founded on empirical studies in educational anthropology

2) directed by the goals of the First Nations people themselves
3) illuminated by a reconceptualization of science teaching as cultural
transmission
4) guided by a cross-cultural STS science and technology curriculum,
and grounded in various types of content knowledge (common sense,
technology, and science) for the purpose of practical action such as
economic development, environmental responsibility and cultural
survival. (1999: 217)
George comes to a similar conclusion, based on her work in Seablast, Trinidad.
'I join with Aikenhead (1996) and Cobern (1996) in advocating that
education in science should be viewed as a process of crossing the
boundary between the subculture of the students and the subculture
of science... For example, if it is discovered that students in Seablast
use their personal experiences extensively in their explanations, then
one of the aids that should be provided is an extensive description of
the differences between how they argue and how scientists argue...
Implicit in these recommendations is the notion that science teachers
in contexts such as Seablast would need to be equipped, through
preservice and in-service programs, to present science to their
students in this way.' (George, 1999: 94)
Practical science vs. theoretical science
In addition to considerations of world view, an important theme which

continually emerges in relation to third world or indigenous science pedagogy
is that of practical, day-to-day knowledge, which can help people to solve
problems, versus school science knowledge, which is often abstract and lacking
in applications. Masingila (1994) concluded from her in-depth ethnography of
the mathematics used by carpet layers, that different mathematical skills were
needed for problem solving in context than those taught in school. Her work
debunks the premise that school teaches a basic set of de-contextualized skills
which can easily be applied in practical situations. Whereas Masingila's work
occurred in the United States, the issue which she addresses is even more
relevant in third world settings, where day-to-day problems of public health,
nutrition, and the like are pervasive, yet science education addresses
standardized, abstract concepts rather than connecting science to the solution
of these problems. Whereas many third world educators believe that the
function of schooling is to provide opportunities beyond the village, the reality
for most students is that they will return to the village after they complete
school, as Waldrip & Taylor document in the case of Kantri (1999).
'Because of the limited employment prospects on the island, most

students would resume village life on completion of high school...
We were disappointed to learn, however, that schooling currently
disconnects young people from their own cultural beliefs and
practices, and attempts to enculturate them into a largely irrelevant
Western school view... Generally speaking, the village elders and
high school students did not perceive the school view as useful for
improving the knowledge and skills for survival in the village.
School science was regarded as providing methods of agriculture that
were either inferior to or no better than traditional agricultural
practices.' (Waldrip & Taylor, 1999: 301)
Waldrip & Taylor intend to conduct further research on villager's funds of

knowledge so that school science might be 'adapted so that the power of
Western science can be harnessed in their interests' (1999: 302). Similarly, in
the Northern Territory of Australia, government involvement in creating
curricula that combine Aboriginal and Western science is well under way. In a
paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association in
2000, Michie & Linkson describe a new handbook, 'Intercultural
understandings in teaching science: A handbook for teachers,' which includes
both understanding of indigenous knowledge and ways to teach in an

intercultural fashion, combining Western with indigenous science. Central to
this work is 'the belief that Indigenous students could learn in both domains
and hold both as valid worldviews' (Michie & Linkson, 2000: 2). The authors
describe a shift in perspective in the Northern Territory, from thinking of the
inclusion of Aboriginal ideas as a means to an end, with outcomes measured
in Western science only, to creating an 'Arrente curriculum whose learning
outcomes arise from both Western and indigenous knowledge systems' (Michie
& Linkson, 2000: 2).
Re-evaluating the purposes of pedagogy in situations of poverty or war
When science education occurs in extreme situations of poverty or even war,

the question of the relationship between what is studied and students' lives
takes on great importance. Zahur, Barton & Upadhyay explore the question:
'What should be the purpose of science education for children of the very poor
class in a caste-oriented developing country such as Pakistan?' (2002: 899).
Through a case study of Haleema (pseudonym), a teacher educator and
reformer, these researchers suggest that among children who are unlikely to go
beyond elementary school, science education must take on a new emancipatory
role.
'Science education must help children in poverty to gain voice and

space in the current social and political climate. Science education
must also provide a path to enhancing the quality of life for both the
children in school and the communities where they live.' (Zahur,
Barton & Upadhyay, 2002: 899)
The research done by this international team of science educators is striking in

its emphasis on issues of social justice. 'Pakistan's social structure and
economy have been supported by socioeconomic and gender caste systems'
(2002: 900). Lahore, the city where they do their research, presents an acute
contrast of wealth and poverty. In addition, the local culture asserts that
women's contribution is in the home, and that the limited resources available
for schooling should go to boys. Currently, science education in Lahore uses
the British school system syllabus, testing is done through British-style end-of-
course exams, and science is treated as a body of knowledge to be memorized.
This approach precludes the use of local, relevant curricula and ignores an
exploration of access and equity issues for girls.
Haleema argues that schools are failing poor children in Pakistan, and that 'the
primary goal of urban science education ought to shift from the acquisition of
the state curriculum to empowerment (individual and community) and social
change' (Zahur, Barton & Upadhyay, 2002: 906). She argues that education
should focus on issues in children's lives, such as water and air quality, as well
as creating gardens where people can grow food, beautify the community, and
study science. Central to Haleema's argument is that children in poverty need

to use science as a way to gain agency in their lives.
'[It is important to create a] sense of accepting children as agents of

change for the future and accept their right to get education and try
out their competencies and contribute to the society, as well as to
empower students to have a sense of belonging and readiness to
contribute to their surroundings, parents and brothers and sisters.'
(Zahur, Barton & Upadhyay, 2002: 911)
Bajracharya & Brouwer (1997) study science education in the impoverished

country of Nepal. The schools they study cannot afford even basic equipment
such as microscopes and balances, and teachers generally feel compelled to use
a lecture method of teaching. As in Pakistan, school fails to address people's
basic needs.
'Most of the problems of Nepal are very basic in nature, such as

poor sanitary conditions, the lack of healthy drinking water, acute
shortages of energy, a lack of transportation, and a lack of adequate
healthy food. However, education in general, and science education
in particular, seem to have remained indifferent to these problems;
they neither reflected these problems in their curriculum content nor
provided a way to address them in other forms.' (Bajracharya &
Brouwer, 1997: 430)
The rationale for this gap between local perspectives and science investigations
is that spiritually-oriented traditional views are dismissed by science educators.
Nepalese people are influenced by stories of Ramayana, Mahabharata, and
Swasthani as well as Buddhist writings. Many of these stories engender respect
for the environment, and might provide a perfect point of dialogue between
Western science and traditional culture. Bajracharya & Brouwer argue that
these stories, which are generally dismissed as 'myths' by scientists, add a
dimension of spirituality and beauty to the discussion of science themes.
38 Lorie Hammod and Carol Brandt
'The task of a science teacher in Nepal, as well as in the world at

large, is never to reduce a natural object such as the rainbow to an
object 'in the dull catalogue of common things, where science clips
an angel's wings and conquers all mysteries by rule and line' (John
Keats) but to retain the sense of wonder and mystery that these
objects possess.' (1997: 433)
Perrier & Nsengiyumva (2003) describe a science inquiry programme in

Rwanda instituted informally in an orphanage for survivors of war and
violence as a kind of therapy. The researchers, a psychologist and a science
educator, noted that children who were otherwise passive became engaged with
engineering challenges. One child commented: 'I just want to make things',
(Perrier & Nsengiyumva, 2003:1120). This comment struck the researchers as
significant because these children 'are in the process of rebuilding their whole
internal psychological structure' (2003: 1120). The researchers described the
children as moving from a state of not being able to play, to one of being able
to do so.
'The most spectacular observation during the pilot sequence is the

joy experienced by some participants... That such positive
experiences are possible during the practice of active science is an
indication that these activities can indeed provide a therapy in some
cases, and at least some sense of re-establishing an internal locus of
control. This also leads to the conjecture that the personal
experience of joy is a driving factor in the natural resolution of
conflicts associated with the learning process.' (Perrier &
Nsengiyumva, 2003: 1124)
While the pedagogical solutions described above are as diverse as the settings
in they occur, all of them integrate the teaching of local traditions and/or the
addressing of local needs. They also present ways in which science education,
led by inspired teachers and researchers, can become truly meaningful,
expressive and even joyful in the most challenging of circumstances, and
suggest that the justifications for particular pedagogies might go far beyond the
teaching of cognitive skills.
Creating new methodologies for science education research in the third world
Nichols & Tippins (2001) have done extensive work with a team of Filipino
colleagues (Arellano, Morano, Bilbao, & Barcenal, 2001) to explore
appropriate ways to educate science teachers for work in the village culture of
Casay. This research team has focused in part on methodologies, all highly
ethnographic, which enable groups of researchers and teachers in the field to
explore the complex contradictions between traditional and Western scientific
beliefs, abstract knowledge and everyday skills, and questions of power,
colonialism, and globalization which affect all third world settings. Several
useful qualitative approaches to research have resulted from these explorations.
The Filipino-American research team explored the notion of 'caselets,' a

diminutive form of case study that can be written not only by researchers but
also by teachers and student teachers. The subject of these caselets is situations
that occur in the context of science education and evoke contradictions
between traditional and Western knowledge. For example, a student teacher
asked to teach sex education may be concerned how this curriculum will be
received in a traditional village. Caselets are not only treated as data for
researchers. They are reviewed by co-researchers and teachers, who respond
in writing, and thus create an ongoing dialogue about how to negotiate
conflictive cultural situations. This research team has also explored photo
essays as ways to express dilemmas in science education. For example, a
teacher photographed three locations, all visible in the same photo, which
represent alternative ways to get health care in her village. These locations are
the Western medicine clinic, the herbal remedy garden, and the Catholic
Church, where people pray for good health. As in other research we have
mentioned, the research team noted that people are able to use all three
resources without apparent contradiction, stating that they do so 'just in case.'
Currently, Nichols et al. (in press) have been using a tool called 'Memory
Banking,' which was invented by the agricultural anthropologist Nazarea
(1998) for native seed preservation. Memory banking honours traditional
knowledge by creating taxonomies of what people know about a certain
procedure in daily life, such as shell fishing. These taxonomies emerge from
interviews with a variety of people, and are charted under categories such as
'environment, health, economic, religious, political, and socio-cultural' issues.
From these taxonomies emerge broader themes, such as 'place' or 'out of
balance.' In considering 'place,' residents of Casay describe the spiritual and
physical connections they feel to their land. In 'out of balance,' they note that
a variety of species of shellfish or plants are decreasing in comparison to the
past. This enables villagers and science educators to consider the causes of this
in-balance, and what can be done. Spiritual, cultural, economic, political and
scientific perspectives enter this process.
The work of Nichols, Tippins, Arellano, Morano, Bilbao and Barcenal, done
in conjunction with a larger team of teachers, student teachers, and community
members, is an attempt to 'de-colonize' science education in a variety of ways.
First, research is done as a narrative, collaborative process that involves
Western scientists, Filipino science educators, and local teachers and citizens
working together. Second, local issues and reflections on issues are taken as
first steps in understanding what should be studied. Third, methodologies are
developed to express community life, through a variety of narrative,

photographic, and memory banking techniques. And fourth, science education
is taken beyond 'community relevant' and into the realm of community
centered, ultimately becoming one part in the process through which a
community can address its problems and come to understandings about the
physical world in which it lives. We feel that in work like that of Tippins,
Nichols and their Filipino colleagues, methodologies which emerged from
anthropology play an important role in expressing the richness of local
knowledge, and in redefining power relationships between researchers,
teachers, and communities.
Lessons learned from science education research in the third and fourth worlds
Doing science education research in the third and fourth worlds challenges basic
assumptions about epistemology, pedagogy, and methodology in profound
ways. While questions of science relativity and whose science we should study
are relevant in minority settings in first world countries, they become magnified
and multiplied in third world settings that are characterized by polyvocality,
where colonial, post-colonial, traditional, and indigenous voices blend. In
addition to contesting the nature of science, third and fourth world settings also
challenge pedagogical purposes. Questions of relevance, while important in any
setting, become dramatic when basic material needs for food, clean water, and
safe environments dominate everyday life. In these settings, does science serve
as a vehicle which can move an elite students beyond their communities, or a
tool to address the problems the community faces, or both? Is it the role of
science to preserve traditional knowledge of natural world, and traditional
languages, or to participate in destroying heritage through replacing traditional
knowledge with 'global' perspectives and local languages with international
ones? What role does the researcher play in balancing the potentially
contradictory directions which science education might take? There are no
simple or easy answers. What is clear, however, is that the issues which are
important in the first world, such as the cultural nature of science; access and
equity; multiple perspectives; and the relationship between context and

cognition, are amplified by being considered in the context of third and fourth
world challenges. To know the 'other' may lead us to understand ourselves.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Central to an anthropological approach to science education is the notion that

science is a cultural activity, which developed as a subset of Western culture
and is socio-historically situated. This contradicts positivist interpretations, in
which science is seen as rational and culturally neutral. As a human endeavour,
science education is communicated through cultural transmission, through a
complex process that cannot be reduced solely to cognitive strategies. Even for
Western children in first world societies, science is not a natural activity, but is
specific and technical, and must be formally learned; children are officially
socialized into the process of scientific inquiry through educational systems.
As with other forms of knowledge, individuals differ in their relationships to
scientific knowledge, which can compete with spiritual views, ethnic identity,
folk culture, or personal beliefs.
Some reformers have challenged the nature and boundaries of science itself.
Ogawa and others have suggested that science should be seen as not only
Western science, but also as 'multiscience,' which would encompass indigenous
understandings of the natural world, as well as personal ways that people
envision science. Turnbull has suggested that science be redefined as
performative rather than representational, and that it should include a 'third
space' in which multiple perspectives can be negotiated. Others such as
Aikenhead have focused on 'border crossings' between various cultures of
science, and on how individuals integrate seemingly contradictory perspectives
in order to reconcile multiple realities.
Whereas science has been traditionally the domain of white males, the barriers
that it presents to 'others'—be they females, minorities, or indigenous
peoples—have become a major research focus. Much research has looked at
different ways to overcome these barriers, generally through altering science
pedagogy in order to deconstruct, and hence make accessible, the hidden
agendas which define the culture of science.
For some researchers, science is viewed as a culture of power and privilege that
is tied to dominant, mostly Western, political, environmental, and economic
agendas. In this light, the question of who is served by science education is

crucially connected to access to and control of knowledge, resources, and
power. Some researchers, concerned with these issues, would refocus science
education away from the learning of traditional canons, and toward
community knowledge or empowerment and/or the remediation of social and
environmental injustices.
For some researchers, the power of an anthropological approach to science

education is in method as much as in substance. Ethnographic methods that
developed in anthropology have proved useful in seeing through insider's eyes,
a skill that was not the strong point of traditional quantitative research, which
tended to view subjects from a distance. Observation, interviews, video-
taping, socio-linguistic analysis, narrative research, case studies, memory
banking and other methodologies that emerged from ethnography enable kinds
of research not previously considered in science education. In the process of
applying these tools, some researchers are transformed into members of teams,
co-researching, reflecting, and becoming engaged with the communities they
would study. Action research involves not only researchers, but also a range
of stakeholders (teachers, local officials, parents, and students) in solving
problems, using ethnographic techniques to evaluate conditions in their own
communities.
Although an anthropological approach to science education is no panacea, and

raises many questions, we suggest that it is an important and natural
outgrowth of an increasingly interconnected world. The intercultural
encounters that were once the privilege of a few anthropologists or
adventurers, traveling in remote lands, have become normal occurrences in
modern cities and hinterlands, in first and third world countries alike.
Whereas this is cause for celebration, it is also cause for concern, in that science
can no longer be separated from the massive globalization process that it
facilitates. Equity issues in science education now extend beyond access to
schooling into an assessment of the impact of modern society on its
environment and on indigenous people. The research reviewed in this article
has implications that go beyond the improvement of science teaching and
learning in classrooms. An anthropological approach to science education
illustrates the deep commitment of many contemporary researchers to
transforming science into a tool that can give agency to all people, including
those who are indigenous or disenfranchised, and that can enable them both to
preserve their funds of knowledge, and to improve the lives of their
communities.
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Contact details
Prof. L. Hammond
College of Education
CSU Sacramento
6000 J Street
Sacramento
CA 95819-6079, USA
lhammond@csus.edu

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Studies in Science Education

Science and Cultural Process:

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Science and Cultural Process:

Defining an Anthropological Approach to

What elements define an 'anthropological' approach to science education

of Anthropology of Education. As science education researchers, our main

science learning is a cultural as well as a cognitive activity, then pedagogical

Before outlining our criteria for choosing articles to be reviewed, it is

any other subject. Webster's definition of culture, 'to grow (micro-organisms)

A second and central term is 'culture,' a word whose definition is highly

A third term requiring definition is 'ethnography.' While Webster (1979: 628)

Another semantic problem that is approached differently by different writers

Outlining areas of research to consider

Erickson, a well-known anthropologist of education, comments:

'The subject matter of science involves culturally learned

As an anthropologist, Erickson observes that science evolved in the cultural

through other traditions. Is there a way to negotiate between such bodies of

teach? Aikenhead and Otsuji (2000) surveyed 59 teachers in Saskatchewan,

Cobern (1996) calls attention to the predominance of research in science

'...the constructivist notion that all learning is a process of personal

Cobern is critical of this approach because it assumes the superiority of one

which teachers and students construct knowledge dialogically. In this

T h e pedagogy of teaching science also involves presuppositions

One way in which culture affects pedagogy is through language and

'...all teaching can be seen as involving intercultural communication

'Through the production of cultural forms, created within the

Most science education research has been quantitative, following the

Cultural anthropology evolved as a field devoted to understanding the 'other,'

in an institution as familiar as schools. (Spindler & Spindler, 2000) Through

observing how learning is transmitted, transformed, and/or resisted by

For some researchers, qualitative methodologies can themselves become tools

The significance of an 'anthropological' approach to science education

mission of extra-local proportions... School knowledges and

What research fits an 'anthropological' approach to science education?

1) The research uses ethnographic data collection methods, defined as

3) Emphasis is on understanding the culture of the science classroom:

economic status, and language contribute to cultural processes of

Research survey taxonomy

In writing this article, we attempted to survey a variety of research sources,

2) articles which deal with the impact of science education on disenfranchised

found in each journal that met the criteria mentioned above.

Taxonomy of Anthropological Articles by Journal (1993-2003)

Type of Article JRST Science AEQ USE Other

I. Culture of science/In schools 15 6 5 0 4

II. Science and disenfranchised

III. International/post colonial

Total articles per journal 33 15 8 10 22

I. STUDIES IN THE CULTURE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION

'Education today faces the perennial challenge of improving the

have focused primarily on the contexts of education, and usually

A central goal of an anthropological approach to science education is to

eliminate the separation between cognition and context in educational

Before we begin, it is important to note that great inconsistencies exist between

Using qualitative research techniques to study life in schools

Some ethnographic research in science classrooms has grown out of the

concerning young children's attitudes toward science by interviewing

Other reformers who assume a critical ethnographic stance toward science

Hayes & Deyhle observe 'micro-level, moment to moment interactions' (2001:

difficult it is to balance context and cognition in teaching science. The high-