European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

MULTICULTURAL AN NON-RACIST SCIENCE EDUCATION. NEW APPROACHES ... 323To re-conceptualise a cultural perspective for Science educationOne of the greatest verifications of students from developingcountries is their feeling that school Science has nothing to do withtheir lives. Their beliefs stem from fundamental differences betweenthe culture of Western science and their indigenous cultures.Interestingly, many students in industrialised countries also share thisfeeling of foreignness. These significant questions suggest a more“cultural” approach to Science teaching.From the viewpoint of cultural anthropology, to learn Science is toacquire the culture of Science. To reach such a goal, students musttravel from their everyday life world to the world of Science of theirScience classrooms. Different cultural processes are involved in theacquisition of Science culture.Towards a border-crossing perspective: a point of view from WesterncountriesStudies on multicultural Science Education focused firstly on themulticulturalism of the group of students that attended Science lessons.Recently, Aikenhead 19 pointed out that learning Science for a group ofmulticultural students implies the crossing of another border, that ofthe subculture of Science.“I shall argue -he said- that science educators need to recognisethe inherent border crossings between student’s life-worldsubcultures and the subculture of science, and that we need todevelop a curriculum and instruction with these border crossingexplicitly in mind, before the science curriculum can be accessible tomost students” (Aikenhead, 1996).Students’ understanding of the world can be viewed as a culturalphenomenon, and learning at school as culture acquisition, whereculture means: customs, attitudes, values, beliefs, worldview, languages,etc. Within every culture group there exists subgroups mostly identifiedby race, language, ethnicity, gender, social class, occupation, religion,etc. Consequently, an individual simultaneously belongs to severalgroups. This is the way people build their own cultural identity, assigningpartnerships.19Aikenhead, G. (1996). “Science Education: Border Crossing into the Subculture ofScience”. Studies in Science Education, 27, pp.1-52.