Sefa Dei 2012

Contemporary Issues in African Sciences and Science
Education
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN AFRICAN SCIENCES AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION
Edited by
Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw
University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
George J. Sefa Dei
University of Toronto, Canada
Kolawole Raheem
Foreword by
Jophus Anamuah-Mensah
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6091-700-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-94-6091-701-1 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6091-702-8 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
vii
Foreword
ix
1. Introduction: Introduction to contemporary issues in African

science education
Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, George J. Sefa Dei and Kolawole Raheem
2. The question of Indigenous science and science education:

A look at the current literature
15
3. Engaging scientific activities to build endogenous science and lay

foundation for the improvement of living conditions in Africa
Wanja Gitari
29
4. Language proficiency and science learning

A. Asabere-Ameyaw and S. J. Ayelsoma
55
5. Childrens Indigenous ideas and the learning of conventional science

Richard K. Akpanglo-Nartey, A. Asabere-Ameyaw,
George J. Sefa Dei and K.D. Taale
63
6. Science student teachers attitude towards improvisation

John Enimah, Kojo Taale and Kolawole Raheem
73
7. Beliefs about the nature of science held by African teachers

in the Caribbean diaspora
Dorian Barrow
81
8. Gazing mathematics and science education in Ghana: Ye asisi yen

(we have been shortchanged!)
Francis Ahia and Fredua Kwarteng
103
9. Culture, identity and science in African education: the relevance

of local cultural resource knowledge
George J. Sefa Dei
127
10. Ethiopia survives: Reintegrating our spirituality and culture into

our own science
Solomon Belay
149
11. Indigenous conceptions of civic education: Reinventing the past

Wangui Mburu
v
175
TABLE OF CONTENTS
12. Achieving the culture of limited aggression: The role of higher

education institution
A. Asabere-Ameyaw and V. Adzahlie-Mensah
195
13. Environmental hazard communication: Revisiting the Indigenous

methods to meet the challenges in Ghana
Mawuadem Koku Amedeker and Thomas Tachie Young
209
14. Conclusion. Re-visioning science and Indigenous education

in Africa: Meeting future challenges
217
Contributors
223
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work stands as a credit to the many scholars willing to share their knowledge
from different locations on the complicated subject of African science education.
In many ways, we believe our contributors have something valuable to say on the
topic and our job has simply been to assemble their ideas into what we hope will be
seen as a coherent piece. Anyone who has put together such a volume knows it is a
tremendous challenge and opportunity. We thank the many countless individuals,
colleagues, family and friends who have assisted us in this endeavour to put
together the edited collection. We have been lucky to the inter-disciplinary edge
and lens to the topic which in a number of ways have helped inform our own
thoughts and ideas on the subject. Our contributors are engaged in some exciting
work on African education and the perspectives they have shared on science
education in African contexts can only help build and strengthen existing
scholarship in the area. We would like to thank colleagues at our various
institutions and our collective conversations that have informed the presentation of
an intellectual vision for the collection. There are many but permit us to mention a
few: Mr. Stephen Dennis, Dr. Thomas Tachie Young, Emmanuel Kutorglo, Marlon
Simmons, Jagjeet Gill, Dr. Rosina Agyepong and Isaac Darko. We are also grateful
to Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, Director of the Centre for School and
Community Science and Technology Studies (SACOST), University of Education,
Winneba, Ghana for writing the Foreword to this book. We thank George J. Sefa
Deis doctoral student, Yumiko Kawano, of the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education of the University of Toronto for the administrative and partial editorial
work to get the volume to the publisher. Working across the Trans-Atlantic has not
been easy but the process has been facilitated by the love of learning that Yumiko
brought to the work. We also want to thank Sense Publishers for the many ways of
taking up the challenge to publish a book on Africa which is governed not strictly
by market considerations but by the intellectual justice and rewards that accrue
from such undertakings. The editorial staffs at Sense Publishers have been helpful
and encouraging throughout the entire process from the initial conception of the
idea of the book to its final production. We are deeply indebted to our individual
families who have always been the backbone of our academic and professional
growth and careers over the years. Finally, we dedicate this book to the young
learners of today who are helping to redefine the goals, purpose and objectives of
education and the role science education can and does play in African development
and human condition.
vii
FOREWORD
If you want development, you should provide relevant education. Education has
come to be seen as the key to unlocking the potential of African countries in their
struggle to pave a sound pathway for the socio-economic and political
transformation of their citizenry. However, this attempt to use education and
schooling as the driving force has and continues to pose numerous challenges to
many governments. One of the areas required for development but which at the
same time poses a great challenge is science education or what is occasionally
referred to as science, technology and mathematics, education (STME). It is
accepted that without a strong foundation in science education, a countrys
development can be dwarfed. Science education has been a source of concern and
worry to many parents, policy makers, teachers, school administrators and
students. For one thing, science is perceived to be a difficult and alien subject by a
number of students who believe they are incapable of handling it. Community
elders wonder why science education is not transforming their communities and
helping them to solve their problems. So how do we [as educators] present science
in ways that are easily discernible to young learners? How do we ensure that
science education maintains its important place in school teachings so as to help
communities find practical solutions to the many problems encountered as part of
everyday living? In effect, how do we prioritize and teach science education in
African schools? These are not questions with ready answers. They are sources of
contentions even among educators. The science teacher like any other teacher and
learner has tremendous responsibilities, the least of which is to understand what
constitutes science and how to approach its study and application of the knowledge
gained to serve society. As societies struggle with basic existence, increasingly the
role of science education is seen as critical to human survival.
In fact today, not many would dispute the fact that education is critical to
national development. Arguably, the central or most pertinent question has been
what kind of education and how educators place science and technology in debates
linking education and development. Africa presents us with an interesting case. We
have ample evidence of science education that happens everyday in our homes and
communities, which is often either ignored or not seen as science. We are also
still trying to overcome the legacies of entrenched past when colonial education did
not always place the question of educational relevance at the front and centre of
national debates. Colonial, and to some extent even post-colonial, education was
and has been geared to serve not necessarily local needs but the interest of external
markets. This situation arose from the abortion of Indigenous cognitive traditions
as a result of the imposition of Western science, which failed to integrate those
traditions into mainstream science. It is my considered view that only a broad view
of science that integrates the accumulated knowledge, values and customs of the
people will help provide a holistic development of societies. According to Amartya
Sen (in his book, Development as Freedom), education should expand the freedom
that people need to make development possible. The expansion of science to
include local/traditional knowledge expands the freedom that is needed to make
ix
FOREWORD
development happen. The outcome will be the promotion of creativity, innovation

and problem solving and the discouragement of the pedagogy of rote memorization
and recall, which prevails in our schools. This book is therefore welcoming for its
attention to science and particularly, the teaching of science education in Africa in
ways fundamentally helpful to the cause of Africa and African peoples that is,
providing greater freedom to the people. Asabere-Ameyaw, Dei and Raheem have
assembled a very helpful bunch of papers for intellectual debates and policy action
that go beyond the continent. The critical discussion of the subject of science,
including the adoption of a broad view of science that encompasses the social,
biological, natural and/or physical domains is significant. The fact that the papers
deal with diverse aspects of science and emerge from educators located in
geographically diverse places, including operating in different academic fields of
higher learning, is an asset. I am also impressed that the discussion avoids the usual
strict dichotomy between local/traditional and Western science and rather makes a
case for taking local/Indigenous knowledge seriously as a form of science
education. What this entails is an evaluation of science along multiple perspectives
and in pursuit of diverse educational agendas.
The editors ably worked with the contributions submitted to create three
interesting and interrelated intellectual/discursive stances: First, is the argument
that the teaching of conventional science must be rethought [and perhaps retooled]
to fit with local contexts while at the same time maintaining the basic tenets of
what science education is universally. For example, there is something worthwhile
in teaching science, technology and mathematics in the African contexts. However,
it is argued that we must broaden the contents of school science curriculum and
also engage in multiple pedagogical and instructional strategies and practices to
comprehensively educate the African learner. This is the only way we can make
science education welcoming and relevant to students and for the subject of science
not to be perceived as an alien field of study. This position identifies grounds of
divergence as far as the contents of natural/physical/biological science education
and that of social science education is concerned. Nonetheless, all the sciences
share very basic principles, as well as key pedagogical and instructional strategies
in that they are contextualized teachings pursued appropriately from where learners
are situated. This also helps for inter-disciplinary challenges in educating the
learner of today to be understood and pursued in ways that are mutually beneficial
to the development of academic disciplines and subjects. The African learner must
be able to saddle different disciplines and at least engage in academic and social
conversations drawing upon the knowledge and strengths of inter-disciplinary
analysis. As the divide of social and natural/hard sciences are made less visible
the student is served best and can develop his/her potential to become a holistic
learner. To this end, there are useful discussions in the book to help the African
learner strive to be a more complete learner. After all, the successful learner today
is one who is open to different ideas and is not closed-minded to disciplines other
than his/her own.
Secondly, local/Indigenous knowledge is itself a form of science which must be
taught in schools as part of an educational approach to broaden conventional
x
FOREWORD
understanding of what is science. This position is relevant if we are to challenge

colonial education that historically served to marginalize African peoples ways of
knowing, including their cultural norms and practices, technologies, arts, languages
and literatures. Indigenous knowledge as science also presents us with an
understanding of knowledge as a form of systematic coherent thought processes
and ideas. In addition, it has its own fundamental principles and ideas like every
knowledge system. These principles regulate human behaviour and action and also
offer social explanations to complex human issues. Such knowledge has its own
cultural logics. Indigenous knowledge has a content and form and processes of
coming to know. As science, such knowledge is acquired through learning and
posits a form of culturally contextualized reasoning that works with its unique
claims of objectivity, truth and neutrality. Such knowledge is not posited as
binary to Western knowledge or thought as such. However, while claims of
universal sharing of these ideas can be made, we must also acknowledge the
important philosophical differences among diverse knowledge systems. As it is
argued, Indigenous knowledge brings to bear a sense of the connections of people
to their cultures, society and Mother Earth. This is important as it enables learners
to relate their knowledge to solving problems in their communities.
Thirdly, following from the preceding argument, science education is presented
broadly to include what the authors are calling science of the social in their bid to
provide holistic education. In this approach, science education is perceived to be
expansive enough to include, for example, civic education and environmental
education. Science is language, arts, politics, history and culture. A number of the
papers take this stance concretely. This approach to science education is aimed at
creating a more responsive education and making the learner well in tune with
every aspect of their social existence. The argument being advanced is an attempt
to move the discussion of science into a new terrain. It has relevance in the African
contexts where local knowledge systems shun the atomization, particularity and
insularity of knowledge and learning. We cannot understand the social without a
connection with the natural, physical and metaphysical. For example, economics is
an interrelation of politics, culture, language, arts, environment, etc. If the African
learner is taught to value these interdependences and connections, it is possible
their static, conventional and mythic view of science education can change. This
requires an art of teaching science.
Beyond the question of what is science is the how to teach of science that goes
beyond providing the expert knowledge base to students. Effective science
teaching requires that our schools are best equipped with the tools for delivering
education. It may require a rethinking of the whole process of educational delivery
[structures, processes and administration of education] so as to allow young
learners to engage their local/home-based knowledge as a starting point to learning.
While many schools and educators see the emphasis on science as crucial for
development our institutions are often limited in their pursuit of science education
for the lack of physical infrastructure and other logistics (laboratories, equipment,
etc). We need not forget that Indigenous ways of delivering education are tested.
xi
FOREWORD
The apprenticeship mode of training, story telling, observation and repeated

practice provides examples that can be used in science education.
Our schools and educators can help African students realize their academic
dreams and life ambitions about science education. We must seriously engage the
question of what type of education are we ready to provide the learner in our
educational institutions so as to succeed in performing their responsibilities?
Education should help us know ourselves, our past and histories, cultural and
intellectual traditions in science, technology, development and all fields of
scholarship. Education must be geared towards social transformation and not
simply education for the sake of knowledge production. A transformative
education helps young learners ride interdisciplinary bridges to scholarship and
intellectual thought. We must be willing to invest in the human resources available
in our schools and nurture success. Of course, our students themselves also have a
responsibility to improve upon their own learning. But for the purposes of the
objective of this book the position that there is a need for multi-/inter-/transdisciplinary approaches to course content and delivery of science education makes
it imperative that we assist African learners to survive in the competitive global
economy where education in the sciences is key. I am confident that the vision
expressed in this book will be a powerful lever for engendering intense
conversation on the merits and demerits of broadening the field of science to
include social and cultural issues and to give recognition to local/traditional
knowledge systems.
Jophus Anamuah-Mensah
Professor and Director
Centre for School and Community Science and Technology Studies [SACOST]
University of Education, Winneba
Ghana
xii
AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI

AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN AFRICAN SCIENCE
EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this book is to contextualize Indigenous science and science

education in the African context as a way of reconsidering/revising schooling and
education. We define science broadly to include both the science of the
natural/physical/biological and the science of the social. By science of the
social we mean science defined broadly to include the nexus of the physical,
social, natural and biological terrains of knowledge which can be taken up equally
as methodological tools and ways of knowing providing a more comprehensive
understanding of our worlds. Perhaps African education continues to be a subject
of intense intellectual discussion. There are passionate arguments that schooling
and education in Africa need to prepare the Indigenous learner to understand
his/her own social condition and what it means for critical education to help search
for effective, home-grown solutions to our own problems (see Keane, 2008; Le
Grange, 2004). Science and technology, while generally admitted as a path for
national development, is still mired in contentions about school curriculum content
and delivery (see Le Grange, 2007; Dalvit, Murray, & Terzoli, 2008; Ezeifa, 2003).
It has been pointed out that African science and technology is steeped in
Westocentric thinking, rather than making use of available resource knowledge
within local environments (see Jegede, 1989, 1992, 2004; Jegede & Fraser, 1990;
Solomon & Aikenhead, 2004). Despite the hard work of a number of educators and
administrators, schools in Africa continue to suffer from a lack of adequate
resources [staff, physical, infrastructural] and development. Young learners either
shy away from applying school knowledge, or are not prepared enough to apply
what they have learned in their classrooms to everyday community problem
solving. Even when the link between education and development is readily
asserted, it is not often theorized and/or operationalized in ways that make sense to
local conditions and challenges. In effect, African education is geared towards a
Western expert-led economy and a tendency to offer a techno-fix approach to
educational problems. Accordingly, how can we [as educators, researchers,
students, policy makers, etc.] collectively and effectively diagnose the malaise of
African education in order to think through and offer genuine educational options
to young learners?
Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw et al.,(eds.), Contemporary Issues in African Sciences

and Science Education, 114. 2012 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
Among the ways to counter-vision contemporary African education, one can

point to how we promote Indigenous science education to improve/enhance
African science and technology development in general. There has been a longstanding push to reexamine local cultural resource knowings in order to appreciate
and understand the nature, content and context of Indigenous knowledge science as
a foundation to promote African science and technology studies in general. We
believe these interests and concerns are not mutually exclusive of each other but as
a matter of fact interwoven and interdependent. The primary focus in this
collection has been to understand the influence of science, spirituality, the
environment and civic education in our bid to fashion a more creative way of
enhancing African science education. We have reconceptualized our understanding
of the broader questions of African culture, identity, history and politics and their
implications or re-visioning African education for contemporary learners.
Consequently, the breadth of coverage of the collection reflects papers in science,
Indigeneity, identity and knowledge production and the possibilities of creating a
truly African-centred education. It is our hope that such extensive coverage will
engage and excite our readers, as we take on the path of what we are termed
African educational recovery.
The purpose of this manuscript is not to rehash a debate about the
Eurocentricity of Western scientific knowledge and the positing of Eurocentric
science as the only science worthy of engagement. It is nonetheless important to
caution against constructing binary understandings of Indigenous/local science and
knowledges and Western scientific knowledge. After all, Western scientific
knowledge is itself a form of local knowledge, born out of a particular social and
historical context. Engaging science in a more global context will bring to the fore
critical questions of how we create spaces for the study of Indigenous science
knowledge in our schools. How is Indigenous science to be read, understood and
theorized? And, how do educators gather/collect and interpret Indigenous science
knowledges for the purposes of teaching young learners?
Educators have recognized that science, particularly the hard sciences
[biological/physical/natural], is an area that most students experience difficulty
with. A critical discussion of Indigenous science education knowledge must focus
on the construction of knowledge, access to knowledge, the transfer of knowledge
and the application of such as part of multiple ways of knowing. We hope to
address the trivialization and devaluation of traditional sciences and the richness of
local knowledges in the academy. A major preoccupation as we discuss traditional
science knowledge in the academy is to address the trivialization/devaluation of
local knowledges. Formal school systems have downplayed Indigenous science in
science education with the resulting effect that we have local/Indigenous and even
Western-educated scholars not schooled in the socio-cultural and philosophical
paradigms of their own communities. Science education is critical to national
development and yet there is a gap in our understanding of an Indigenous
consciousness to cultivate such local knowledges, which can contribute to the
search for home-grown solutions to local problems and challenges. Science
education must be rooted in understanding local ecosystems and the particular
2
INTRODUCTION
socio-cultural and political milieu of producing scientific knowledge. Local

cultural knowledges herald the spiritual and cultural foundations upon which the
survival of local communities rest. Validating Indigenous knowledge can thus only
contribute to the search for home grown Indigenous perspectives steeped in
culture-specific paradigms (Yankah, 2004, p. 26).
Many researchers and academics alike have argued Indigenous knowledges
emphasize a physical and metaphysical interdependence (Odhiambo, 1972;
Ermine, 1995; Semali & Kincheloe, 1999; Battiste & Henderson, 2000; Castellano,
2000, see also recent pieces in Denzin, Lincoln & Smith, 2008; Dei, 2011). As a
form of epistemology, Indigenous science knowledge also signals a society, culture
and nature nexus. Like every form of knowledge, Indigenous science knowledge
has its own ontological, conceptual/philosophical, methodological and axiological
groundings. As a science, philosophy and intellectual practice Indigenous
knowledge acknowledges ones existence as not conscripted and scripted by
simply a colonial and colonizing experience. The knowledge that is on the margins
speaks to local intellectual agency of a people to define their own history,
identities, destinies and the will to create their own futures. In effect, an Indigenous
science knowledge system would comprise an understanding of the successful
ways by which a people deals with their environments and surroundings to solve
everyday problems and challenges.
In this collection, we pay particular attention to Indigenous science because we
see a link between how educators can effectively promote science teaching in
schools and the particular working understandings of the way in which science can
be articulated by African educators. We have outlined a pedagogy and instruction
of science education that is holistic in its engagement of bodies of knowledge.
Since Indigenous science is also about Indigenous/local knowledge, the promotion
of African science education predicated on the ability of educators and schools to
offer a space for the promotion of Indigenous knowledge as a valid way of
knowing. For example, we believe we can demystify the teachings of science once
it is grounded in local knowledge and surrounding knowledge for learners to know
that such knowledge is not after all alien to their cosmological knowings. The
interconnections of science, culture and development indicate the important place
of science education in our schools. The call for emphasis on science and
technology education in our schools can also assist in African development if the
teaching of science is pursued in a way that connects with local learners and their
social, physical and cultural milieus. Thus, the teachings of science have to
integrate our Indigenous ways of knowing with so-called Western science
knowledge given the multiple and collective dimensions of knowledge (see also
Solomon & Aikenhead, 2004).
Throughout this collection we have taken the liberty of providing a very liberal
definition of science in an intellectual and political project to tackle the dominant
ways in which the term has been engaged. To reiterate, our project is not to be seen
as a mere extension of dominant paradigms; but as one that challenges, complicates
and subverts such dominant ways of knowing. To this end, we also note that in a
collection such as this manuscript it can raise a host of pertinent issues under the
3
broad terrain of science education for discursive emphasis. At this juncture, we

want to purposively and briefly highlight three specific areas: The complex issue of
spiritualism and science; the relevance of environmental science education; and,
how we can promote science as part of civic and peace education.
THE COMPLEX ISSUE OF SPIRITUALISM AND INDIGENOUS SCIENCE
Spirituality is not organized with a particular religion nor is it affiliated to

particular faiths. Instead, spirituality is a way of life, a reading of the world that
grounds the understanding of the self, personhood and the relations on the inner
environments to outer spaces/environments and cosmologies. It is an understanding
of the connections of the socio-cultural and physical universe; a communion of the
material, physical and metaphysical worlds. It is not about an ascription of higher
order, but rather an understanding of the existence of social forces beyond the
ability and capacities of the human senses to easily comprehend the communion of
social and metaphysical realities. Many of us acknowledge and respect our spiritual
identities as part of who we are as individuals, a people and a collective.
Spirituality is very central to the functioning and organization of Indigenous
cultures. Through spiritualism we come to understand local peoples ways of life,
histories and system of belief in relation to their worlds. Many Indigenous
communities attribute spiritual meanings to everyday life. For example, different
deities have their special attributes as related to humans and there are social
functions, powers and the cultural significance accorded to the Universe. Through
everyday social activity, local peoples seek to reclaim their Indigenous spiritualities,
knowledge systems, social, cultural and economic and resources. Spiritual practice
in everyday life has also become a means and a process of recuperating, resisting
and healing from the damage caused by colonialism when people move to rebuild
healthy, independent and sustainable societies.
We take the position that it is through the mutual and critical interrogation of
ideas, concepts, principles, symbols, cultural and social values that is the
foundation of knowledge have been and can be truly established. Indigenous
science emphasizes a physical and metaphysical interdependence. As a form of
epistemology, Indigenous science also signals a society, culture and nature nexus.
Like other forms of knowledge, every body of knowledge, Indigenous science has
its own ontological, conceptual/philosophical, methodological and axiological
groundings.
We answer the question by taking the following discursive positions. There is a
place for spiritual knowings in Indigenous science and the teaching of such
knowledge in schools (see Solomon Belays paper in this collection). Consequently,
the issue then is how we work with Indigenous spiritual epistemologies that assert
among many things that spiritual ontology is about the nature of social reality and
that what accounts for reality and the essence of being which is essentially a
spiritual existence. We believe a spiritual ontology and spiritual teachings shape
culture and what is science. The ontology of Indigenous science works with the
idea that the Universe is basically a spiritual universe and Indigenous spiritual
4
INTRODUCTION
ontologies express the essence of the relationship of the individual to society and
nature. Most things in the natural world are imbued with spirits. Humans do not
stand apart and neither are we above the natural world. We are part of the natural
world. Meaningful social existence is by establishing communion with the
spiritual world (e.g., through the veneration of ancestors). In fact, within African
systems of thought, ancestor/ancestress worship is based on two related notions, (a)
life after death and (b) a continuity or linkage between the world of the living and
that of the dead. This system of thought and belief process guides and regulates
social conduct. It respects an ordered way of knowing with its own ontology and
epistemological basis
Epistemology is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of understanding
social reality and explaining the guiding principles of social action. Within
Indigenous epistemologies, certain contested claims are made; for example, the
idea that spiritual identity is a way of knowing; and knowledge production is a
connection to the body, mind and soul. We cannot privilege body of matter/mind
and soul and vice versa. It is asserted that all knowledge is accumulated
knowledge, based on observing and experiencing the social and natural worlds and
thus every way of knowing is subjective and based in part on experiential
knowledge. Social learning, it is argued, has to be personalized in order to develop
the intuitive and analytical aspects of the human mind. To understand ones social
reality, is to have a holistic view of society. The world is about inter-connections
and inter-relations. In effect, we cannot separate politics from economics, culture,
religion, cosmology, family and kinship (see also Dei, 1993, 1996). Spiritual
epistemologies connect place, spirit and body (see also Meyer, 2008). The spiritual
is embodied and every life form exists in paired relationships and interconnections.
What this means is that there are no definitive distinctions in life (as in young/old,
man/woman, individual/communal, mind/body, personal/political and the social/
natural).
THE QUESTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE EDUCATION
Studies of African Indigenous knowledge systems attest to how the physical

environment has been an important source of knowledge about herbal pharmacology
and herbatology, Indigenous farming technologies, traditional arts and crafts,
including folkloric productions, knowledge of climatic changes and patterns, as
well as local soil and vegetation classification systems. The preservation of the
African physical environment as an important source of local cultural knowledge is
critical if educators revise science education in African schools. Critical science
teaching in schools must include and help young learners to engage environmental
science knowledge (see also the paper by Mawuadem Amedeker and Thomas
Young in this collection). There is a need for environmental science education that
stresses the interdependence of society, culture and nature and the necessity for
living communities to be in harmony with their physical environments for
collective survival. For example, science education must teach about local
traditions of sustainable environmental resource use and particular cosmological
5
beliefs systems and worldviews/worldsenses that herald the sanctity of land and
physical environment. It is such a knowledge base that has helped local
communities sustain their environments through time. Unfortunately, todays
market forces and, particularly, the forces of globalization are fast encroaching
upon and abusing the sanctity of land and physical resources held in local
communities. Local environments have been under assault as people seek out daily
material existence well beyond their means. Local peoples have continually been
told to conserve their physical environmental resource only for multinational
corporations to turn around and abuse such environments. In such cases, local
peoples have not enjoyed the benefits of their restraint. We need critical education
that protects and makes for sustainable environmental resource in order to preserve
the physical environment for current generations and the generations to come.
Environmental science education is more than impacting knowledge about the
working of the biosphere. Environmental science education is about taking
responsibility. It is teaching about how local communities can maintain a fitting
balance between their needs and sustain resources for use through time. It is about
teaching to battle the ills of individual, social and corporate greed that have and
continue to wreak untold havoc on physical environments and racialized
communities. It is about teaching ways communities are addressing and can redress
ongoing environmental degradation and the ecological imbalance of the
environments. Science can contribute to the task of sustaining local physical
environments through knowledge about appropriate technology use. We know how
science and technology can contribute to environmental degradation when they are
not conducive to local environments. The development of science and technology
in Africa has to take into account the impact of such knowledge on local
environments.
Apart from been viewed as a productive resource, the environment has been a
site of knowledge. Environmental science education in school must therefore
examine the power and asymmetrical power relations that have been structured
around the environment and human use and how ecological spaces have been
created, owned and territorially defended. The environment also raises key
questions of ethnic/race, gender and class relations in terms of how such identities
inform our everyday relation to local environments and the particular knowledge
we develop and work with. Particular conceptions of humanity have become
dominant discourses that express our collective destiny in maintaining environments
without acknowledging our differential responsibilities and culpabilities in
degrading environments and the problem of modernity (e.g., globalism and forces
of globalization) that continue to create environmental disasters (e.g., polluting gas
emissions, climatic changes and other human-made environmental disasters).
Environmental science education would teach about the impact of development on
local developments and the relevance of local science knowledge for ordinary
people to be aware and combat environmental degradation. Let us take for
example, the building of the Akosombo dam, an anthropogenic hydroelectric
project situated on the Volta Lake in Ghana. This project supposedly sought the
interest of local peoples through offering jobs such as fishing, farming and
6
INTRODUCTION
transformation. However, as amplified by Gyu-Boake (2001), the Akosombo dam

has been connected to particular water-borne diseases, increased weeds in the lake,
all of which harm fishing as a way of life. The effects of the dam has also increased
drought due to decreased rainfall in the forest and savannah regions of West
Africa. More so, changes in the dam have also led to increase in atmospheric
temperature due to high evaporation, while local peoples have also noted changes
in wind speed on and around the lake. Gyu-Boake (2001) further speaks about the
social problems resulting from the Akosombo project due to resettlement and the
loss of Indigenous land and cultural practices. Environmental science education
will have to sustain lives of local peoples in ways that work with understandings of
the connections of society, culture and nature (see also Dei, 2010).
SCIENCE AS CIVIC AND PEACE EDUCATION
Science education must also promote civic and peace education (see Wangui
Mburus paper in the collection). For example, Indigenous science knowledge and
teachings relating to African proverbs highlight youth moral and character
development, the importance of developing a sense of civic responsibility,
community building, citizenship and schooling as a community (see George Deis
paper in this volume). Learners in our schools, colleges and universities come from
diverse and different economic, regional, linguistic, cultural, ethnic, religious and
linguistic backgrounds. African education in a post-colonial context cannot sweep
such differences and the diversities in the student population under the carpet.
While post-colonial education must promote national integration and social
cohesion, such goals cannot be achieved by simply sweeping away social
differences. These differences can be tapped into as sites of strength and education
by science educators to enhance learning for the entire student population. Science
education can contribute to the cause of civic education teaching about collectivity
among young learners moral and community values that cherish mutual
interdependence and responsibilities to self, family, community, nation and global
citizenship. In many pluralistic contexts, multicultural education has promoted
cultural diversity as an intrinsic and valuable component of the social, political and
moral order. A diverse schooling population is valued on the basis of a common
humanity with a collective future assured by goodwill on the part of all. The
contributions of different cultures and ethnicities to national well-being and destiny
are acknowledged (see Dei, Asgharzadeh, Eblaghie-Bahador, & Shahjahan, 2006).
Science education can contribute to this goal of education by emphasizing the
varied contributions of our different groups to science and culture knowledge.
Effective science education will include an analyis of the processes of teaching,
learning and administration of science in schools and the ways in which these
processes combine to produce differential interests and learning outcomes among
young learners. Teaching about science as civic education for peace is bringing
into the schooling dialogue discussions around identity, citizenship and belonging,
as well as pointing to how citizenship, community building, claims of ethnic,
gender, class, religious identities, history, politics and knowledge all converge to
7
produce and inform the contemporary learner. Science as civic education is about
making claims to self and collective worth that include a connection to everyone
around us (including social communities and our natural environments). A critical
approach to science education ontology would herald the interface for society,
culture and nature and point to a spiritual sense of self and place. Science as civic
education for peace is bound by connections of inter-dependency and inclusion
(see also Asabere-Ameyaw & Adzahlie-Mensahs paper in this collection). Science
for peace education is teaching the social as science. Science as civic education for
peace must speak of the intersubjective nature of human interest. Such education
must be cognizant of the different ways and methods through which we come to
know and understand social relations. It calls for moving beyond armchair
theorising to respond to local problems with colonial historic specificities through
the Indigene. Notably, the relations with the Indigene and the intersubjective
ontology of the social are incommensurable and not categorised through a
collective valid list of rules, but more so through the lived experiences embedded
within the African commune. Science as civic education is about dialogue through
critical consciousness as it cogitates itself through the particularity of the African
social as historically developed. In rethinking African science as civic education,
the knowing self cannot assert itself as authentic, as the lone expert of knowledge.
Instead the self itself is rooted in an ontology through transgressive pedagogies in
order to speak through a certain primacy of the African social. Educating about
African science as civic education is guided by the principle that the conditions of
knowledge are embedded within the social practices of local African communities
and moreover, these practices have been ontologically oriented through oral
histories, folklore and proverbs. Our position is one where science as civic
education is not about substituting conventional classifications of science, with
African science as civic education, but instead about troubling the hegemonic hold
underscoring the multiple ways of interpreting particular epistemologies through
cultural difference as science.
CHAPTER OUTLINES
The beginning chapters of this book set out the nature and context of the problem
of science education that African schooling and education has to contend with.
Subsequent chapters offer inclusive and counter visions of science education that
can be embraced in order to provide and ensure that the African learner receives a
more holistic and inclusive understanding of science education in general.
Our beginning chapter, The question of Indigenous science and science
education is basically an examination of some of the relatively recent literature
addressing the question of instruction, pedagogy and pursuit of science education
globally and specifically in the African context. While we broach and appreciate
the complexity and depth of the subject matter and attempt to understand the
various scholarly methodological approaches to research studies on the topic of
teaching science education, we highlight in particular the significance of the nexus
of the society, culture and nature in understanding and revising science education.
8
INTRODUCTION
We engage a discussion of the complex issue of spiritualism and science

education to understand its place and the challenges posed for educating young
learners.
In her piece, Investigating the school science project in Africa Wanja Gitari
acknowledges the role school science plays in the improvement of social welfare
and development in general. The author contends that despite such understanding,
the promotion of science education as one of the key means for social welfare has
so far not contributed to addressing developmental challenges of Africa. The
author adds voice to the many scholars pointing to the lack of an endogenous
culture of science in Africa; notwithstanding the fact that education and community
development sectors, as well as scientifically based organizations have
championed the development of a culture of science. Gitari reviews the existing
literature to offer an analysis of the successes and difficulties of the ongoing
attempts at science education. Among the questions raised are: How has the
science project been structured and implemented? What are some of the successes
and difficulties with [the conventional approach for implementing science
teachings]? And what is the outcome of the science project and implications for the
future of school science in Africa? The focus of the authors critical examination
is science and technology policy and practice, the conventional use of school
science to solve problems in everyday life and the social economic welfare and
community development. In the end, the paper identifies the roles, opportunities
and limitations afforded by school science in transforming local peoples everyday
lives through institutions such as ministries of education, ministries of science and
technology, schools, international (development) organizations and local nongovernmental organizations.
In their review of some of the existing scholarship on the effect of language
proficiency on science concept learning, Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw and Jonathan
Samari Ayelsomas paper Language proficiency and science learning presents
readers with some interesting perspectives on the language of science. In pointing
to the links between science concept learning and second language learning, the
authors also allude to the challenges of language proficiency in conventional
science education. It is explained that there is an established way of talking about
science, that in schools young learners are encouraged to express their ideas and to
question evidence in investigations of public science issues, usually through
established conventional modes and medium of communication. Accordingly, a
binary notion of how science is learned often presents challenges for students for
whom English is a second language. The authors point out that a key determinant
to science achievement is significant research documentation of proficiency in
language instruction. For a young learner to understand scientific concepts and
communicate effectively using such science concepts, she or he must first
understand the language in which the concepts are being presented. This paper has
implications for re-visioning African schooling and education in science. As the
authors note the exclusive use of foreign language for science instruction could be
detrimental to the acquisition of scientific concepts among Indigenous
communities and lead to disaffection and disengagement from school. Therefore,
9
Indigenizing the school curriculum can strengthen young learners in the acquisition
of scientific knowledge and skills.
Richard Akpanglo-Nartey, Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, George J. Sefa Dei and
Kodjo Donkor Taales paper, Childrens Indigenous ideas and the learning of
conventional science examines young learners Indigenous ideas and the learning
and acquisition of conventional science. The paper is informed by the findings of a
specific case study that sought to know and understand some of the ideas children
had on scientific processes and concepts prior to learning of school science.
Through the administration of a questionnaire and conduct of interviews with a
sample of Ghanaian high school students and science teachers, the authors point to
the prior knowledge about science that young learners have about conventional
science is largely informed by their own observations, customs and beliefs of the
society and their religion. Though most of these prior conceptions were at variance
with conventional school science, science teachers found a way to work such
knowledge pointing to the place of conflicting ideas in science education.
Unfortunately, school curriculum materials often do not integrate or work with
learners Indigenous ideas about science. It is argued that a transformed curriculum
that is able to work with learners Indigenous ideas, placing them on the table for
discussion in science education, holds promise for radical science teaching in our
schools.
John Enimah, Kodjo Donkor Taale and Kolawole Raheem in their study
Science student teachers attitude towards improvisation, note that the shortage
of science instructional materials in pre-university institutions in Nigeria has been a
topical issue for quite some time now. The persistence of the problem prompted
their study which targeted levels 200 and 300 students in the education department
of a tertiary institution in Katsina State, Nigeria. A total of 150 randomly selected
students were requested to complete a questionnaire containing 16 Likert-type
attitude items on improvisation. Data from 129 usable questionnaires were then
analyzed. Among study findings, it was revealed the students had a positive
attitude towards improvisation, while the teachers (among the respondents) had a
higher positive attitude than the non-teachers. Notwithstanding, the overall positive
attitude of the students towards improvisation, it was found that 12 of them
had negative attitudes towards improvisation. This interesting finding appears
to indicate that in spite of the students aspiration to be science teachers after
completing their programmes, some of them had not acquired the dispositions
required of professional science teachers. One can only surmise that the nature of
the problem has equally to do with how science has conventionally been taught and
understood in African schooling context.
Dorian Barrow in his paper, Beliefs about the nature of science held by African
teachers in the Caribbean Diaspora argues that theory, methods and knowledge
gained from years of study of Indigenous science and practices apply to the
understanding and improvement of teacher quality and ultimately, student
achievement. With these applications, science education research has the strong
potential to make more effective and systematic contributions to the improvement
of science teaching in culturally diverse school settings. This potential can be
10
INTRODUCTION
realized by linking the scientific study of teacher beliefs to teachers classroom

behaviors and student achievement. This chapter advances a perspective on teacher
beliefs about the nature of science and science education and their interactions with
teacher classroom behavior in secondary schools in Tobago. The article (1) offers a
view of the role of socio-cultural context in the formulation of teachers views of
the nature of science and science education; (2) show the role of metaphors as a
way of thinking and a guide to action; and (3) discusses the empirical basis upon
which useful cross-cultural comparative analyses and extrapolations may be made.
The article synthesizes research from the fields of Indigenous studies and science
education and closes with recommendations for developmentally oriented research
on teacher quality in cross-cultural contexts.
Francis Ahia and Fredua Kwartengs chapter Teaching and learning of
mathematics/Ye Asisi Yen [literal meaning We have been shortchanged] offers
a poignant and refreshing critique of traditional methods of science teaching using
the study of conventional mathematics as a case in point. The paper begins by
critiquing the (standard) pedagogy of mathematics teaching and learning in
Ghanas schools, with its emphasis on facts with no or little attention paid to
context and disregard for the student life-world. This paper has implications for
educating young African learners, arguing that standard mathematics and science
pedagogies lead to memorization, an over reliance on formulas and what is termed
parroting of knowledge. The authors point out that meaningful mathematical
skills and knowledge is acquired when attention is given to concept development,
knowledge construction and their application in context in the teaching and
learning of mathematics. Accordingly, mathematics teaching and learning
becomes a preparation for life, rather than as a means of passing tests. In
conclusion, the paper spells out the broader implications for science education in
Africa.
George J. Sefa Deis paper, Culture, identity and science in African education:
The relevance of local cultural resource knowledge seeks to challenge the
coloniality of science and scientism and the way dominant science as a body of
knowledge has served to delegitimize certain Indigenous and cultural ways of
knowing. Using a Ghanaian [and to a limited extent Nigerian] studies of
Indigenous cultural teachings of proverbs, the author makes the case that the
education in Africa should first be about helping young learners understand and
respect the self and group, identities and cultures and the community values of
discipline and social responsibility. Dei argues that there are cultural teachings that
constitute part of the knowledge base of Indigenous science. The paper helps to
reposition science not as a methodological tool, but rather as a frame of cultural
reference, a way to raise broader existential questions about self, group, culture,
history and identity and how we make sense of the connections of people to their
social and natural worlds. Such thinking primarily connects science to culture,
values and ideas about human existence and social relations, as well as helps create
a worldsense of interconnections of self, group and community.
Ethiopia is a country, as is the African continent, that is, much impregnated
with innumerable spiritual and cultural heritage. Solomon Belay in his manuscript
11
Ethiopia survives: Reintegrating our spirituality and culture into our own science
argues that any viable educational options [including science education], must take
into account students spiritual and cultural values. Given that the process of
knowledge construction is influenced by experience, prior knowledge, values,
beliefs, as well as socio-cultural factors of community life, the author argues that
improving science education in Ethiopia requires an examination of the spiritual
and cultural practices in which education is generally contextualized. Using an
ethnographic study based on interviews, observations and focus group discussions,
the paper highlights specific spiritual and cultural values of Ethiopian communities
that can be engaged in science education. It is noted that science has been an
integral part of Ethiopian spirituality and culture and a science education that
resuscitates Indigenous culture can facilitate students learning of science.
Wangui Mburus paper Indigenous conceptions of civic education explores
the educational implications of Indigenous knowledge for promoting science and
civic education in African contexts. The author argues that in the face of rising
violence in many communities, a growing number of educators have viewed civic
education as possessing pedagogic and instructional relevance for the promotion
social cohesion and democratic practices that enhance peaceful coexistence. Mburu
argues that in many Indigenous cultures, civic education has been pursued
primarily as a way to bring about social harmony among diverse cultures and
peoples and also, to ensure mutual coexistence with nature. It is opined that
Indigenous conceptions of civic education is good for humanity in general and that
schools in Africa, rather than mimicking Westocentric conceptions of civic
education, could return to their local cultural resource knowledge base and
understand the principles and ideas that promote genuine civic education. Using
case material from her doctoral dissertation research in Kenya, Mburu shows the
relevance of civic education in Kenyan schools as part of a new wave of critical
science education.
Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw and Vincent Adzahlie-Mensahs article, Achieving
the culture of limited aggression The role of higher education institutions,
undertakes the debate on African science education further through a socio-cultural
and political lens/context. This paper recognizes that educational reform initiatives
are not possible without peace. The necessary conditions for the pursuit of
education must be achieved before one can pursue genuine educational initiatives
in Africa. The paper highlights the nature and extent of the deadly conflicts all over
the globe in the twentyfirst century. It cites the increase in terrorists activities, the
greed in exploiting and use of natural resources and degradation of our
environment are resulting into preventable conflicts and deaths and asks: what can
be done to deal with these problems and lessen the conflicts and the terrible
consequences? It is argued that perhaps an answer lies in establishing Peace
Education in our schools and higher institutions of learning. Through a Culture of
Peace Education, it is hoped that educators can contribute to resolve conflicts
without resorting to war or using the survival of the fittest approach. The paper
advances the principles behind peace education and how it shapes the role higher
education plays in the development of peace culture. There is a focus on the World
12
INTRODUCTION
Education Forum in 2000 that led to two major frameworks relevant to the
development of peace education programme: first, the establishment of the
International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), which was formed to
coordinate the provision of education and how it can be used for conflict
prevention, both as humanitarian response and for post-conflict reconstruction;
and, second the Dakar Framework for Action which called for the promotion of
educational programmes in ways that promote mutual understanding, peace and
tolerance to prevent violence and conflict. It is argued that peace education
curriculum of education in higher institutions should consider the increasing
migration, the effects of globalization and the advancement of information and
communication technologies which have made people today increasingly mobile.
The chapter by Mawuadem Amedeker and Thomas Young on Environmental
hazard communication: Revisiting the Indigenous methods to meet the challenges
in Ghana, notes that environmental awareness level of rural and urban dwellers in
Ghana has been called into question on a number of occasions. The turning point in
Ghanas environmental concerns came when the Environmental Protection
Council, which later became the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set
up on 23 January 1974 to protect and improve the environment in Ghana. Since
then, Ghana has initialized a number of international agreements for proper
environmental management and also signed a number of environmental protocols
(e.g., the Kyoto Protocol, signed on 30 May 2003 under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, aimed at halting global warming). The
authors argue that in the Southern world today our institutional frameworks for
environmental impact assessment are modeled on those obtainable in the West.
The motivating factor being that most environmental impact assessment policies
emanate from and are funded by the Western world. Unfortunately, these
international environmental prescriptions often ignore potential contributions from
Indigenous knowledge, hence their failures in African countries. The paper outlines
ways in which students of environmental studies can contribute to Indigenous
science and environmental knowledge. The authors show how parents, families,
elders and the local environment are cultural custodians of invaluable sources of
environmental issues. The authors make a case for integrating Indigenous
knowledge about local sustainable environmental use into the environmental
discourse so as to effectively deal with pressing contemporary environmental
problems and challenges
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Dalvit, L., Murray, S., & Terzoli, A. (2008). The role of indigenous konwledge in computer education
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Dei, G. J. S. (1993). Indigenous African knowledge systems. Tropical Geography, 14(1), 2841.
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Dei, G. J. S. (1996). Anti-racism education: Theory and practice. Halifax: Fernwood.
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14
AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI

AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
A LOOK AT THE CURRENT LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
The possibilities of Indigenous science and the incorporation into school science
and technology education are tremendous. We assert that educators can further the
cause of schooling and education by helping the youth to engage the self, group
and community in the responsibilities of national development, and together with
our diverse communities of learners, develop an in-depth understanding of what it
is we are teaching, learning and why. So we ask what is educating about science?
This is not an easy question. As already noted, this is in part because the term
science itself as has been argued is a loaded term with lots of cultural baggage.
The question is also contentious for a people whose Indigenous/cultural knowledge
base has constantly been devalued over centuries. In this paper, we look at some of
the relatively recent work in the area of pedagogy and instruction of science
education and what they point to in terms of a call for a multicentric perspective on
the education of science through the integration of local cultural knowledge. The
examination of the existing literature, while not exhaustive by any account,
suggests to us that the questions of Indigenous culture, identity, history and politics
can implicate a radical revisioning of science for contemporary learners. It also
suggests that even from a methodological position there are broader philosophical
and theoretical implications of our understanding of science, science education and
Indigenous science. The challenge to create space for the study of Indigenous
science in our schools/academies will require that we understand and examine our
current pedagogical and instructional modes.
THE PEDAGOGY AND INSTRUCTION OF SCIENCE EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
In looking at some of the most current works pertaining to science education, a

number of different pedagogical suggestions have been identified but the overall
theme remains the teaching and reinforcement of the Western scientific method as
the only method of knowledge production. Recommendations from authors have
stressed an increase of technology used within and outside the classroom and the
teaching of scientific tools including the ways to make and defend an argument
and how to better codify the world. Many of these recommendations have taken for
granted the scientific method while the others attempted to expand current
pedagogies to better address it. Overall, it is apparent in these readings that there is
one way to do science and that students are not presented with any other methods
of knowledge production. Buss (2010) explains that many preservice elementary
teachers exhibit concerns regarding the teaching of math and science. His study
aims to examine the initial efficacy of preservice teachers for teaching science and
mathematics and compare their efficacy for teaching these areas with other
elementary school content areas (p. 290). In his study, Buss (2010) operationalizes
efficacy to refer to the level of competency an individual expects to attain when
teaching elementary content area material efficacy beliefs may vary as a
function of the personal experiences an individual had in a particular content area
(p. 291). He found that preservice teachers efficacy scores were lower for math
and science than other areas. Possible reasons for the lower efficacy scores in
science and math by these teachers include doubts of their own abilities in these
subject areas. In order to increase efficacy ratings, Buss (2010) proposes two
procedures to improve teachers efficacy: witnessing teachers deliver efficient
lectures and taking more effective models of science methods courses and
mathematics courses (p. 295). Finally, a number of questions are asked including
would individuals who have low efficacy beliefs for teaching science spend
less time teaching it? Would they engage in less planning time? Would they deliver
instruction less effectively? Would they expend less energy in the science teaching
situation? (Buss, 2010, p. 295). The object of course is to warn the reader of the
possible ineffective practices of science education and the effects on the students
who do not receive quality schooling. While these questions are important, this
volume seeks to expand the concept of science education in a manner that engages
with many methods of conducting science. After all, science education, if taught in
a manner that engages the knowledges and methods of knowledge production of
the community may become an easier task for the student as well as the educator.
Thus, questions relating to this reading may be: how can the methodologies and
pedagogies of Indigenous science help teachers feel more comfortable in teaching
science? How can the teaching of a subject that inherently engages diverse learners
in the practice of science help a student feel more confident and more engaged?
Efficient teaching may also be a result of finding new methods of engaging with
the material. Hong and Kang (2010) insist on the perceived need to foster and
encourage creativity in science students. The authors argue that science is
ultimately a creative endeavour and most scientific processes involve creativity
(p. 822). Their research surveyed educators in both the United States and South
Korea on their feelings and understanding of creativity and creative students. The
study comes on the heels of reports from educational agencies in both countries
delineating the need for creative students and an emphasis on fostering creativity as
a major facet of a teachers work. The researchers found differences in the ways
how teachers understood creativity, for instance, in relation to ethics, when
creativity was used for an unethical purpose 10% of the participating U.S.
teachers and 39% of Korean participating teachers denied that the student was
creative (p. 830). Most participants in the study also believed that creativity could
be fostered; however, the majority also did not believe that students had this talent.
16
According to the participants of this study, however, teaching for creativity was
limited due to standardized achievement tests which require understanding and
applying only basic concepts, not creativity (p. 835). In this way, given the
prevalence of standardized testing, science education has become a process of
repeating information for the purposes of passing a test rather than the application
of concepts as they affect daily life.
The employment of knowledges to daily life is difficult given the ways that
science is taught. Deanna Kuhn (2010) in her work proposes an argumentation
curriculum that exposes students to the different aspects of making an argument.
Kuhn, quoting Bricker and Bell (2009), points out that the goal of science must
not only be the mastery of scientific concepts but also learning how to engage in
scientific discourse (p. 810), as such, to Kuhn (2010), the goal is to communicate
and most of all to persuade. Scientific thinking becomes a social activity (p. 811).
However, there is a dissonance here because while scientific thinking is
conceptualized as a social activity, the process is presented in individualized
terms and the object is to ensure ones position as the only way of thinking about a
problem. Thus, arguing is understood as conflictual rather than collective learning
experience where the object is to secure commitments from the opponent that can
be used to support ones argument. The second is to undermine the opponents
position by identifying and challenging weaknesses in the opponents argument
(p. 813). As such, the learning experience is not relational experience where both
individuals push the boundaries of their understanding to arrive at a correct
response, instead it is understood as an individualistic process where the object is
to devalue the others point of view and ultimately win. The author goes on to
discuss the role of evidence in this endeavour as a necessary facet of the scientific
process whereby it can strengthen ones argument as well as weaken the counter
argument. However, the author does not speak about the need to engage with all
information surrounding a topic rather than only focusing on that which furthers
ones argument. This process would then make it difficult for a student to change
opinions as an argument goes on since the objective is to win the argument and the
shifting of positions can be constructed as undermining ones initial argument. In
all, while learning how to effectively argue is a valuable tool, it can be
counterproductive as each conversation is then understood as duel where one must
discredit the other until victory is proclaimed in such a combative context.
In the teaching of science, many authors focus on the pedagogical employment
of the scientific method. This topic is taken up in relation to engaging with inquiry
and scientific questions, learning how to observe and finding ways to employ
technology to further scientific thought. Mike Padilla (2010) writes about a
perceived need to increase the inquiry skills of students as well as their ability to
link those skills to critical thought. He defines inquiry as being about logic, its
about reasoning from data and its about applying scientific techniques and skills to
real-world problems (Padilla, 2010, p. 8). With this in mind, Padilla states that
inquiry teaching is an approach that engages student curiosity and wonder, that
inspires students to observe and reason and that helps them to sharpen their criticalthinking and communication abilities (p. 9). Reason and inquiry in this sense
requires a positivist and empirical approach that is data driven. According to the
17
author, inquiry is a process to engage with a scientific question, participate in

design of procedures, give priority to evidence, formulate explanations,
connect explanations to scientific knowledge and communicate and justify
explanations (p. 8). Given that logic and reason is constructed as stemming
solely from a specific epistemological method of knowledge production, it
becomes important to contest what is understood as logical and how logic can be
found outside of the Western scientific method.
While we all engage in observing the world around us, the classic scientific
model postulates a correct way to engage with observations. McBride and Brewer
(2010) see careful observations as a foundation of the scientific process (p.
40). However, observing is not nearly enough for them in order to engage in the
scientific process. Observations must follow a systematized, precise and structured
method. As such, while they argue that observation is fundamental to gathering
the evidence that supports scientific understanding (p. 41), it comes with a caveat
as just looking is not enough; most students require structure and guidance in how
to focus and observe with a purpose (p. 41). McBride and Brewer (2010) then
suggest activities that they believe will lead to scientific observations. According to
the authors, these activities will begin to show how some scientists begin to collect
data as making an observation means to study or look at something closely. The
ability to make careful observations is an important skill for scientists, especially
ecologists. By looking closely at the natural world and studying even the
smallest details, an ecologist can begin to ask interesting questions and make good
predictions (p. 42). The activity ends through a process of categorization.
Questions are asked about their samples, the process under which they found them,
how categories can be created to define and understand their surroundings and
what they found surprising about the samples they gathered. In a similar vein to
McBride and Brewer, Finson (2010) also focuses on observations and the
inferences that can be made about the world through the use of the scientific
method. To him, too often, the wrong definition is used for inference in science
classrooms including referring to it as a conclusion or explanation one makes
about an object or event and it is based on observations (p. 45). Rather, he argues,
inference should be understood as ones best explanation for why something
occurred (p. 45, emphasis in original). To this end, Finson (2010) lists five tips to
help develop better inferences. These include: an inference is only as good as the
observations on which it is based, an inference is only one of multiple possible
explanations for a set of observations, inferences are not always correct,
inferences are influenced by prior knowledge and experience, [and], as teachers
we need to help our students examine the assumptions they use when making
inferences (p. 4647). These tips are meant for employing logic; however, logic is
not explained and as such taken for granted within a scientific framework that only
includes particular knowledges. Given the taken for granted standing of a Western
understanding of logic, this endeavour, while attempting to focus and open up
science for students can also be quite constricting for the teacher, as is understood
as the holder of knowledge, which determines what is deemed logical and what is
not, as well as the logical method to go about it.
18
The current literature also cites technology as an important tool in teaching

science. Jimoyiannis (2010) states that while educators find technology to be
useful, it is severely under-used. This is the case even though the availability of
technology in schools has increased. To this end, Jimoyiannis (2010) and Zhang
et al. (2010) both provide possibilities for curriculums centred on the presence and
use of technologies. Zhang et al. (2010) particularly focus on mobile technologies
that can be used to learn everywhere and all the time (p. 1504). Perkins, Loeblein
and Dessau (2010) also advocate the use of technology, albeit in a different way.
They suggest the use of simulations that create animated, game-like environments
in which students learn through scientist-like exploration (p. 47). These
simulations, they argue, can be used in the absence of equipment in the classroom.
TOWARDS A COUNTER-PEDAGOGY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
Missing from the foregoing analysis is an understanding of the Indigenous

pedagogic ways of science teaching grounded in local knowledge systems. In this
section, we first focus on the conceptualization of science and Indigenous
knowledge, highlighting studies that have raised pertinent issues for rethinking
schooling and education. We contend that for the most part when the topic of
Indigenous Science is raised, the focus of the discussion has been how we
validate Indigenous knowledges in the academy as science. We want to move
away from that to a discussion of the merits of Indigenous Science itself. In so
doing, we are disrupting scientism as a framework of knowledge production. We
are speaking of science as a tool to answering existential questions and making
sense of the connections of people to their cultures, nature/Earth and society. We
note that the historical genesis of Western science has tied science to religion
itself. As already noted, science has been so culturally contextualized and valueladen, while at the same time making spurious conceptual claims to universality.
So one may ask what conceptual claims are we ourselves then making?
In his conceptualization of Indigenous science, Frank Elliot (2009) notes there is
a clear dissonance between Western conceptions of science and Indigenous beliefs.
Elliot begins his argument by dispelling the myth of objectivity as well as the idea
of scientism which he defines as the belief that Western science gives the only
real description and explanation of reality. This results in the exclusion of
ontological and epistemological understanding of the natural world through other
forms of knowledge, specifically Aboriginal ways of knowing (p. 285). Elliot
(2009) links scientism to colonialism by quoting Peat (2002) as stating that a
dominant society denies the authenticity of other peoples systems of knowledge
(p. 285). A key point to Elliots argument is the inability to distance the knower
from the known and the need to understand knowing as a process. Elliot (2009)
uses his arguments about the dissonance between Western science and Indigenous
peoples to explain the marginalization that happens to Indigenous students within
science classrooms as well as to suggest a new way to understand science through
metaphor. Cajete (2000) is quoted as stipulating that [N]ative science is used as a
metaphor for [N]ative knowledge and participation in the natural world in both
theory and practice (p. 289). In all, according to Elliot the inability to explain
19
meaning in the science classrooms leads to disenchantment from science in the part
of Indigenous students. As such, Elliot utilizes Aikenheads (2006) concept of
humanistic science to develop a new paradigm that links Western science with a
conceptual shift mediated by metaphoric meaning. This model introduces new
perspectives of human cognition and meaning-making, as well as new approaches
to scientific objectivity and observations of self and others. From a Western
scientific perspective, this includes cognitive and affective understanding of events
in the natural world (p. 296).
Similar to Elliots conceptualization of the false prescribed divergence between
Western understandings of science and Indigenous knowledge, Bradshaw (2010)
writes about trans-species communication. He begins by relating the long history
of Indigenous peoples speaking to animals and then by refuting what used to be
mocking discourses of these practices through the use of Western science.
Bradshaw (2010) explains the framework employed in Indigenous communities
regarding wildlife communities where they were generally treated as sovereign
nations with authority equal to, if not greater than, that of humanity (p. 408).
While these conceptualizations were mocked, some elements of Western science
have begun to adopt similar understandings whereby slowly, modern humanity is
turning from anthropocentrism toward ecocentrism: away from ways of being that
separate humans from other animals and a return to those that bring multiple
species into community (p. 408). Beginning by citing studies finding little genetic
difference between animals and humans, Bradshaw (2010) states that science has
found what Indigenous people have known, that other animals posses (sic)
capacities formerly assumed to be uniquely human and neuropsychological
discoveries have led to a species-inclusive model of the mind depicting humans
and other animals with virtually the same neurobiological structures and
mechanisms underlying what seemed to make us special, including cognition,
emotions, ethics, decision-making, a sense of self, the capacity to suffer
psychologically and vocal learning (p. 409).
In this way, the capacity for humans to interact and communicate with animals
is highlighted by citing individuals who have lived with lions, bears, elephants and
birds. These experiences are understood as employing forms of communication
whereby meaning can be derived. Speech then is critiqued as an ineffective method
of communication and as such an unacceptable excuse for believing animals are
unable to communicate, as Bradshaw (2010) states the verbal channel is a
relatively poor medium of expressing the quality, intensity and nuancing and
emotion of affect in different social situations (p. 414). This then can challenge
beliefs that the ability to engage in human speech provides the holders of such
language as superior species. At the same time, it provides a way to imagine other
forms of communication as more developed and complex. Finally, Bradshaw
(2010), after explaining the close link between humans and animals, as well as
their ability to communicate, critiques the use and abuse of animals as unethical
and cruel and as part and parcel of the supremacist belief of humans over nature.
Other writers have also taken up Indigenous knowledges to critique the
limitations of Western science. Some researchers take up such knowledge in the
20
context of ecology and conservation. Peloquin and Berkes (2009) describe the
ways in which Indigenous knowledges encompass complex understandings of the
ecology in which people live. They argue that while Western science based
societies have tended to simplify ecosystems in order to manage them the
environmental monitoring practices of some Indigenous and rural societies are
significant in identifying ways to perceive the continuum of nature holistically
(p. 533). These practices by Indigenous societies they argue, allow for the
replenishment of valuable resources rather than prioritizing some resources while
squandering all others such as in science-based management practices. However, at
the same time the authors provide an argument of Indigenous science as having a
greater understanding of a phenomenon than Western science, they discredit the
intervention by employing terminology that ultimately devalues such knowledge.
Peloquin and Berkes (2009) place Indigenous ways of knowing in a category
termed fuzzy science. They explain fuzzy science as a form of multi-valued
logic that seeks explanation through approximate rather than numerically precise
reasoning (p. 535). While the authors explain that fuzzy science is used in
different disciplines including computer programming, engineering and
environmental monitoring and assessment (p. 535), it also appears as a backhanded comment as it creates a binary between real or clear science and fuzzy
science. Of course, given the ways in which Indigenous knowledges are
delegitimated, they are relegated to the latter.
What ultimately appears to be the argument for Peloquin and Berkes (2009) is
that science has a quantitative basis while Indigenous ways of knowledge are based
on a complex understanding of qualitative factors. As such, the authors state that
there is a distinction to be made between knowledge as content versus ways of
knowing. The former is static and assumes that knowledge can be treated as
something that can be transferred from one container to another. The latter is
dynamic and focuses on the way knowledge is acquired through practical
experience (p. 585). However, there is still an understanding that through the
employment of a separate prism labeled as fuzzy science, Indigenous knowledges
do not belong in the science category or fit within a limited category that is less
noteworthy. In order to explain the complexity of the method employed by
Indigenous people, the authors provide information from a study in the James Bay
where Indigenous peoples have studied a myriad of factors that affect their geese
hunts. Peloquin and Berkes (2009) provide a number of factors that are taken into
account by the hunters to determine when and how to hunt. These factors include
the need for places to rest to diffuse hunting pressure in space in time, with the
goal of not disturbing migratory geese past a threshold beyond which they would
avoid the territory altogether (p. 537). As the geese hunts have produced less and
less geese, Peloquin and Berkes (2009) highlight the explanations provided by
hunters. These explanations include the encroachment into their territories by
government bodies, industrial interests, changing climate, transgressions of hunting
rules, availability of berries which serve as food for the geese, etc. These factors
explain the complexity of the Indigenous ways of knowing as well as a clear
understanding of the many factors that can affect a single activity, the hunting of
geese. The authors attempt to display the compilation of factors through a model
21
but given the complexity it appears as if the limitations of maps cannot nearly
cover the overall complexity of the understanding of such an environment.
As noted repeatedly, Indigenous ways of knowing are highlighted by their
ability to remain dynamic to the changing conditions of their environment. An
example is a study by Orlove, Roncoli and Kabugo (2010) which focuses on
knowledge of climate weather by a group of people in southwestern Uganda. The
authors begin by operationalizing the term Indigenous knowledges to mean the
place-based knowledge that is rooted in local cultures and generally associated
with long-settled communities which have strong ties to their natural environments
(p. 244). This knowledge, they argue, tends to be the result of cumulative
experience and observation, tested in the context of everyday life and devolved by
oral communication and repetitive engagement rather than through formal
instruction (p. 244). In contrast to what they term modern science, the authors
state that Indigenous knowledges are a flexible entity, which by virtue of [their]
diverse and empirical nature, can easily integrate skills and insights from other
knowledge systems as well as from experimental practice (p. 244). Orlove,
Roncoli and Kabugo (2010) then go on to explain the need for knowledge of
climate systems given the importance of agriculture [and a] domestic water
supply (p. 247). Climate knowledge is of the utmost importance given its scarcity,
a limited labor supply due to the AIDS epidemic, high cost of seed and the
vulnerability to predatory lending. As such, farmers in this region depend on a
system of knowledge regarding historical climate patterns that predates
generations. According to the authors, the collective memory of the farmers in the
district stretches back at least to the early decades of the last century, well before
the beginning of [weather-related] data collection at the nearby meteorological
stations (p. 252). People also employ a number of signs to determine the coming
of rain including an increase in nighttime temperature, shifts in prevailing winds,
the flowering of trees and the arrival of migratory birds. The flowering of coffee
trees represents a dynamic nature of the knowledge system since the trees are
relatively new and there is not a long history of coffee production in the region.
Finally, individuals employ a social nature to knowledge as they share
information about weather with travellers and in their travels. These elements, to
the authors, represent a system that relies on a variety of spatial, temporal and
social scales (p. 261) while also maintaining a strong practical emphasis and
enabling the possibility of including new elements. It is interesting to note that
even after explaining the complexity of the process under which knowledge in
relation to this phenomenon is created as well as the ways under which it has been
tested, the term science is not employed to define it. This may speak to our
collective deficiencies in conceptualizing science as a concrete practice only
happening within specific spaces by particular bodies and labeling all other
methods of knowledge production as being either fuzzy or well outside the
boundaries of science.
There is a large dissonance between Western science and traditional ways of
knowing. Deborah McGregor (2009) takes up this issue by first distinguishing
between different understandings of traditional knowledge and then providing
22
three examples of ways in which such knowledges have been taken up in projects
attempting to incorporate it. According to McGregor (2009), terms like traditional
knowledge tend to connote a false homogeneity of knowledge across the diverse
nations and cultures of Aboriginal peoples. She adds as well traditional implies
that the knowledge is static and confined to information gained in the past (p. 73).
With this in mind, McGregor (2009) outlines differences between traditional
knowledges and western knowledges, she writes:
traditional knowledge is both more and different from Western definitions.
Aboriginal understandings tend to focus on relationships between knowledge,
people and all of creation. Traditional knowledge is viewed as the process of
participating fully and responsibility in such relationships, rather than
specifically the knowledge gained from such experiences. For Aboriginal
peoples, traditional knowledge is not just about understanding relationships; it is
the relationship with creation (p. 75, emphasis in original).
While there have been many attempts to understand traditional knowledges,
these have often involved Western scientific research frameworks. McGregor
(2009) argues that as a result, traditional knowledge is frequently reduced to a
catalogue of information (p. 76). There are also a number of barriers hindering the
use of traditional knowledges including Aboriginal people are not accorded
meaningful participation in studies and other work that should and in some cases
does attempt to use traditional knowledge; Aboriginal people and their
knowledge are viewed as objects suitable for study rather than as people for
working with; Aboriginal people have little control over how the knowledge they
share will be used. Such knowledge can be (and has been) used against its original
holders, or otherwise abused, at a later date (p. 77). To further her point regarding
the different ways in which traditional knowledge and Aboriginal peoples can be
engaged in initiatives in Ontario, McGregor outlines three cases. These cases are a
state-led initiative, a co-operative initiative between the province and the
Anishinabek Nation and a case where a First Nation is in the drivers seat. These
cases, given the ways they are conceptualized engage with traditional knowledges
and the holders of such knowledges in vastly different ways.
REVISIONING SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXTS
A number of scholarly works in and on Africa have problematized science and in

particular school science and the place of Indigenous knowledge in school
curricula. In his pioneering work, Jegede (1994) explores the ways in which nonWestern socio-cultural perspectives affect the teaching of Western science in Africa.
He considers the fact that in Africa, science teaching is limited to giving information
rather than encouraging critical and creative thinking and the personal construction
of knowledge (p.122). In particular, Jegede (1994) sees Science-TechnologySociety [STS] education can help bridge the gap between traditional African values
and Western scientific values. It is asserted that STS can help Indigenous science
studies (e.g., tunning, craft, painting, printing and communication) integrate with
23
modern technology. The author claims that in STS education, one needs to do a
couple of things: first, use familiar materials and processes; second, teach and learn
science through Indigenous technology and third, employ accommodation and
assimilation (co-existence between cultural values and Western science). Jegede
(1994) notes that Africa had and still has its own science and technology [and
that] these were based on very different conceptual and cognitive models, which
were not apparent to, or regarded by, the colonialists who first introduced Western
education to Africa (p.121). Historically, it was assumed that African peoples had
no science (see Maddock, 1981). Jegede (2004) shows in his work the differences
between African and Western science. The former is monistic-vitalistic (see also
Odhiambo, 1972), metaphysical and based on people. Western science is
mechanistic, exact and hypothesis-driven which seeks empirical law, principles,
generalization and theories. Jegede (1994) argues that the problem occurs when
the African must learn Western science against the backdrop of myriad
sociocultural factors brought from the traditional environment. (p.122). He refers to
Knamillers work (1989) linking school science with Indigenous science and
technology in Malawi and notes this quote:
One of the reasons why school science has remained alien to most African
children is because we often fail to take into account the science and technology
local people are doing, what knowledge and skills they have and what problems
they feel are important to consider (see Knamiller, 1989, p. 2.).
Jegede (1994) concludes with the suggestion of a conceptual ecocultural
paradigm which is a state in which the growth and development of an
individuals perception of knowledge is drawn from the sociocultural environment
in which the learner lives and operates (P. 130).
Keanes (2008) relatively recent work explores the ways in which science
educators can contribute to both meaningful science education and community
well-being through understanding key aspects of an African worldview in Zulu
community. Relying on the South African case study of 2005 when the National
Research Foundation formed focus groups on Indigenous Knowledge system and
repeated calls for development and inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges [IK] come
from academics, the focus was on how school science can contribute to solving
problem in relation to environmental issues. Keane (2008) notes that [a]ttempts to
include IK in textbooks usually consist of traditional bit that fit into the current
syllabus (i.e., only fragments of IK). This is a gross oversimplification of IK
preservation and it demonstrates our Western science hubris (p. 589). She further
observes that even when IK examples are currently included in science curricula,
the examples occur within a Western science paradigm (p. 589). Through her
study at science education for two schools in rural communities, she highlights
some themes critical to acknowledging a collective Chibini worldview, such as
history, medicine, nature, water, time and Ubuntu. She states that [e]ducators and
curriculum designers in South Africa need to understand the role of worldview
related to these themes (p.610).
Le Grange (2007) has also argued for rethinking the science education in South
Africa. The study examines the ways in which Western science and Indigenous
24
knowledge might be integrated in South African education. Le Grange (2007)

notes that while much has been written over the years about complications African
learners experience when learning science (see for example such pioneering works
as Ogawa, 1986; Ogunniyi 1987, 1988; Jegede, 1989; Jegede & Okebukola 1989;
Jegede & Fraser 1990; Okebukola & Jegede 1990; Jegede 1996), the topic of
African Indigenous knowledge has not been given the attention it deserves. Le
Granges (2007) work attests to the importance of including Indigenous knowledge
into the curriculum as theoretically enshrined in National Curriculum Statements.
There is recognition of how the achievement of such ideals depends on teachers
understanding of the interaction between Western Science and Indigenous
knowledge and their ability to manage classroom discourses related to this matter.
It is contended that science is performance rather than representation. Students
are often required to learn to view science as representation to the neglect of
science as performance. Science as representation refers to abstractions such as
theories and rules of scientific method and descriptions of the world in the
textbook. On the other hand, science as performance refers to the doing of science.
In such case, science is a human and social activity that is messy, heterogeneous
and situated. According to Le Grange (2007), what students do not learn with the
science as representation perspective is the situated messiness of science
(p.586). The author claims the representationalist perspective on knowledge produces
an incommensurability perspective that is Western science and Indigenous
knowledges are incompatible or that Indigenous ways of knowing may be
recognized as a particular way of understanding the world, but that they are not
science (p. 586). Understanding knowledge production as performance may
enable Western science and Indigenous knowledge to work together in the third
space (Turnbull, 1997, p. 560). Le Grange (2007) also states that focusing on
performative side of science leads to understand science is a situated activity which
connects people, sites and skill. After all, science is locally produced through
processes of negotiation based on the social organization of trust and not empirical
verification/falsification (Le Grange, 2007, p. 589).
Bringing Indigenous knowledge as science to school curriculum goes beyond
the disciplines of social studies and humanities. Studies by Dalvit, Murray and
Terzoli (2008) point to the implication of Indigenous knowledge and language for
computer science education. These authors point out that on one hand, computer
science is seen as empowering students in Africa in terms of economic and global
accessibility. However, since most computer-related knowledge inevitably reflects
Western assumptions and ways of thinking, it makes it difficult subjects of study
for students who have difficulty in accessing the infrastructure and working with
unfamiliar paradigms. The authors, therefore, emphasize the need to integrate
Indigenous knowledge in teaching of computers to respond to local problems. On
the teaching and learning of Indigenous language and knowledge in ICT
(information and computer technology) education, [which the authors call
ethnocomputing] the emphasis is on the importance of integrating cultural
elements into software design and the teaching of computer science. In their work,
Dalvit, Murray and Terzoli (2008) refer to a study by Duveskog, Sutinen, Tedre
and Vesisenaho (2003) in Tanzania on the use of fractals in traditional arts and
25
crafts as the method to aid the teaching of computer science. They point out that
Ubuntu, African philosophical concept, has named one of the most popular Linux
distributions, which values of sharing and emphasizes the interdependency
between humans. Ubuntu captures the spirit of open source community more
precisely than comparable Western terms. In effect to further African youth
education in computer science, the authors call for a new software programme for
marginalized students. In their project at Rhodes University, they developed and
tested materials (more than 150 computer terms) in isiXhosa which also integrates
multimedia. This programme was developed with students input. The authors
conclude that culturally appropriate metaphors and examples that support existing
computer skills course help students build their confidence and uncover the
potential of their own local languages and cultural knowledges to help them
academically.
Ezeifa (2003) draws on his experience teaching mathematics to Indigenous
students in Canada, America and African countries. He unequivocally states that
the integration of Indigenous knowledges such as folklore, myths, legends and
taboos in science and mathematics education, will help address current issues of
low enrolment and academic performance of students from Indigenous cultures.
The author argues that while Indigenous communities of African, Asian, Mayan,
Hispanic and Aboriginals contribute to the development of science and mathematics
(for example, the modern system of numerals, negative number, concepts of
congruence, Algebraic concepts, etc.) their contributions are largely ignored in
textbooks. Ezeifa (2003) argues the lack of teaching Indigenous students real life
and place they live (where they are connected to, physically, psychologically and
spiritually) in the science and mathematics curriculums and current methods of
teachers is a huge problem. The author argues the distance from the connection
between the subject areas and place [home environment] is one of the strong
reasons why students feel alienated from science and mathematics. Regarding to
the teaching methods, students from Indigenous cultural background usually adopt
the holistic approach to information processing and also field-dependent learners.
Bringing local cultural knowledge into school science education in Africa will
demand that we rethink some of our deeply held reservations about cultural forms
of knowing. We argued in the introductory chapter, for example, about the place of
spirituality in schooling and education. As we move forward in educating young
learners for tomorrow, we have to grapple with key questions about science
education that implicate spiritual knowings: How do we teach local cultural
knowledge as Indigenous science that emphasizes a physical and metaphysical
interdependence and connections? How do we approach science and technology
studies that connect with local learners and their surrounding social and physical
environments? How do we work with Indigenous spiritual ontology that asserts the
universe is basically a spiritual universe? How do we broach the teaching of
spiritual identity as a way of knowing in schools? These are not questions with
easy answers. Elsewhere, one of us has proposed the creation of what he has
termed a trialectic space in schools (see Dei, 2011). This space will involve a
dialogue among multiple parties a sort of dialogic encounters with an epistemic
26
community. But more importantly, it is constituted as a space for learners to openly

utilize the body, mind and spirit/soul interface in critical dialogues about their
education. It is also a space that nurtures conversations that acknowledges the
importance and implications of working with a knowledge base about society,
culture and nature nexus. Such spaces can only be created when we open our minds
broadly to revision schooling and see schooling as place/site and opportunity to
challenge dominant paradigms and academic reasoning.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Francisco Villegas, Yumiko

Kawano, Marlon Simmons of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE) for
their assistance with literature search and initial comments on drafts of the chapter.
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ENGAGING SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES TO BUILD

ENDOGENOUS SCIENCE AND LAY FOUNDATION
FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING CONDITIONS
IN AFRICA
The current scientific activity in Africa reflects the view that quality science
education and science-based community development projects can effectively
transform social welfare (Bamiro, 2007). That view is based on the long standing
experience with the content of school science and its direct and indirect
transformation of conditions in everyday life. For this reason, development
scholars in general and science educators in particular, have proposed science
education as one of the key means for social economic development (ADEA, 2011;
Bamiro, 2007; Dei, 2003; Thisen, 1993; UNESCO, 2008, 1983). Yet, despite
decades of the science education endeavour in Africa, Africa is still challenged in
the 21st century in many areas of social welfare development. But the literature
points to a likely cause of the problem: lack of sustainable science in Africa or lack
of an endogenous culture of science (Bamiro, 2007; Swift, 1992; Thisen, 1993).
Endogenous culture of science refers to the absence of a critical mass of people
who purposefully attempt to transform the living conditions in everyday life using
the principles of the discipline of science. A working definition for science and
other terms is provided toward the end of the Introduction.
Additionally, judging from the burst of scientific activity in Africa, it is
reasonable to assume that science education and science-related community
development activities are gradually and implicitly facilitating the development of
a culture of science. This is a fair assumption, especially given the long-standing
move worldwide in the science education endeavour to enhance the transfer of
school-based science to solve problems in everyday life (Fensham, 1992; Layton,
1991). Furthermore, there is evidence in the literature to show that the science
curricula and community development projects have responded to the knowledgeapplication challenge by revising curricula (UNESCO, 2008), improving the
quality and quantity of development projects (IDRC, 2007) and re-evaluating the
science and technology policy expectations (Bamiro, 2007).
This chapter will explore the science education and social welfare concerns that
are directly addressed by science education literature and community development
efforts. I will argue that, to engender endogenous science in the African continent,
science education policy makers, researchers, educators and community developers
must begin to bring together and act upon the excellent, but disparate, ideas that
inform capacity building and science education endeavours. The following areas of
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the literature will be reviewed and synthesized to examine how the opportunities
afforded by school science and community development projects might be utilized
to promote social welfare in Africa: (i) science and technology policy and practice,
(ii) the use of school science to solve problems in everyday life and (iii) social
economic welfare and community development projects. Before reviewing these
areas, I provide a working definition of key terms in the following paragraph.
The meaning of the term science as it used here reflects the emergent concern of
this chapter, which is mainly the efficacy of science education in African school.
Discursively, science is used (i) to refer to the explanation and understanding of
natural phenomena concerning the physical, biological and chemical domains.
Such reference is located either in the school culture (school-based science or
science education as distinguished by various subject areas) or in the everyday
culture (Indigenous science or local knowledge). Specific meaning for science is,
of course, located in the context in which the term science is used. (ii) The term is
also used to refer to the outcomes of skilfully integrating concepts, skills and
practices of various subject areas such as economics, sociology, religion,
mathematics, literature, politics, technology, biology, chemistry, physics and so
forth, or knowledge domains such as Indigenous knowledge to solve problems in
everyday life. The result of such multi-faceted integration is the broad multidisciplinary scientific literacy posited by Roth and Calabrese-Barton (2004).
Further, drawing from the specific and general meaning of science, the science
project in Africa refers to the organizationally structured attempts to use schoolbased science and Indigenous/local science, by various knowledge generating and
leadership sectors such as schools, universities and colleges, governmental
organizations, non-governmental organizations and international organizations to
positively transform living conditions.
Endogenous science is the scientific literacy that is inspired by local needs, but
crafted using knowledge from all domains of life. Notably, the lack of endogenous
science in Africa has resulted, in part, from the advancement of the narrow view of
scientific literacy. The narrow perspective promotes the position that scientific
literacy is developed only through certain school subjects, specifically biology,
chemistry and physics. Additionally, the narrow view of scientific literacy has
contributed to the devaluing of the role of Indigenous and local knowledge in the
development of endogenous science. Such devaluing emanates from the mode of
knowledge production in the academy that privileges certain forms of human
experiences over other forms. For instance, analytical methodologies are advanced
over holistic methodologies, written communication is favoured over oral
communication, performance is given prominence over participation, competition
is nurtured whereas cooperation is marginalized and the sense of sight is elevated
over other human senses. For a full exposition of the ways in which knowledge
production in the academy has marginalized and stunted the development of
knowledge production in other domains, see the edited work by Dei (1999) and
Riley (1999).
The remaining part of this chapter is organized into seven sections. The first
section is the cultural context for the discussion (School-based science as a human
30
ENGAGING SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES
activity). The second is an outline of the importance of endogenous science (The

need for endogenous science). The third is the theoretical context (Cultural
learning approach to capacity building). The fourth is the pertinent literature (The
importance of learning transfer). The fifth and sixth sections will discuss four key
questions on endogenous science (Building agency among youths and adults,
Improvement of social welfare through alternative teaching and learning approach).
The seventh and final section is a conclusion of the chapter.
SCHOOL-BASED SCIENCE AS A HUMAN ACTIVITY
School-based scientific knowledge is the product of many years of careful thought,

novel propositions, refined methodologies and consensus building. It is the
accumulated processes and products that help us to understand and explain how the
natural world works (Kuhn, 1970). And the scientific methodology, in its reliance
on nature to determine the truthfulness of its products, has emerged as a reliable
and powerful explanatory mode (Ford & Forman, 2006). Subsequently, one
purpose for teaching science in school is to impart on future generations the
powerful way of knowing established by the discipline of science, namely its
general methodology. The scientific methodology trains people to think in
systematic and logical manner. People are taught to first explore background
information for the topic/issue, construct an educated guess (hypothesis), formulate
research questions, find and set up the investigation materials, carry out the
investigation and involve a treatment and control set up where applicable, suspend
judgment of the outcome of the investigation, analyze the data and determine if the
initial assumptions have been confirmed or disconfirmed by the findings. This is
followed by other social cognitive aspects of knowledge construction such as
sharing of information, debating outcomes and repeating of experiments to
establish plausible correspondence between observation and interpretation.
In further setting the context for this chapter, it is important to lay out some
(often cryptic) parameters of school science that enhance its appeal as worthy
knowledge with universal application. Although institutionalized in Western
Europe in the 17th century, school science has appropriated knowledge from other
cultures and integrated diverse ideas into its existing worldview, knowledge
networks and practices (Sardar, 1989). Further, by drawing extensive evidence
from cultural conquest (using language and other cultural artifacts), Bernal (1987)
demonstrates the influx of cross-cultural ideas into ancient Greece by Egyptian and
Semitic peoples, colonizers of ancient Greece. [Greeks were the innovators of
natural philosophy, the precursor of school-based science.] Accordingly, Bernal
(1987) posits that Greek culture had arisen as the result of colonization, in the first
and second millennium, by Egyptians and Phoenicians . Furthermore, Greeks
had continued to borrow heavily from Near Eastern cultures (p. 1). But through
revisionist projects, European historians in the 18th century sought to distance
themselves from the visible association with the scientific and technological
innovations of other cultures. By so doing, European historians promoted the
notion of a pure discipline. Even more, the revisionist agenda was extended beyond
31
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race and culture to other fields of human experience. For instance, natural
philosophers (the scientists of the time) separated the discipline of science from the
discipline of technology in an attempt to purify scientific pursuits. They viewed
technology as the application of scientific knowledge and not a part of natural
philosophy (Aikenhead, 2006; de Vries, 1996).
Eventually, a new name science was adopted to replace the name natural
philosophy. One of the consequences of the name change was the organizational
separation of science from technology. According to Aikenhead (2006), the
separation that is still prevalent today is the erroneous notion that technology is
solely applied science, thereby maintaining the ancient Greek philosophy
(ideology) that holds pure science superior to practical knowledge (p. 11). From
then on the label science and its symbolic import to do with purity influenced the
emergence and practice of school science curriculum worldwide (Fensham, 1992,
1988). But in recent times, science and technology educators have sought to
re-integrate science and technology to reflect the synergetic existence of the two
disciplines (Gilbert, 1992; Hodson, 1999; Jenkins, 1996; Layton, 1991; Pedretti,
1996; Venville, Wallace, Rennie & Malone, 1998). Currently the epistemological
separation of science and technology is no longer tenable. Indeed a new term,
technosciences has been coined to underscore the interrelatedness of science and
technology (Sillitoe, 2007; Turnbull, 1997). In the ensuing discussion, the
reference to science will assume the practical and logical co-existence of science
and technology will privilege the role of other ways of knowing in the science
project in Africa, as emphasized below.
Another point to note is that science is one way of understanding and explaining
natural phenomena, among other ways (Bayboy & Maughan, 2009; Bazin, 1993;
Cajete, 1999; Dei, 1999; Harding, 1996; Hodson, 1993; Iaccarino, 2003; KruglySmolska, 1994; Sillitoe, 2007; Turnbull, 1997; Worsley, 1997) and therefore
educators and development specialists need to be cognizant of other ways of
explaining and understanding natural phenomena that are outside the traditional
positivistic paradigm of school science (Aikenhead & Mitchell, 2011; Swift, 1992).
Sillitoe (2007) emphasizes this observation:
This is necessary not only because [local or indigenous knowledge] should
continue to add to global sciences awesome fund of knowledge, but also
because it might help us to manage this knowledge more effectively for the
planet and humankind. It is becoming increasingly evident that our astounding
scientifically informed technological advances are coming at considerable and
possibly unsustainable costs (p.16).
Setting aside the sometimes contentious issue as to whether other ways of
knowing about nature should be granted similar recognition as school science (see
for instance, Cobern & Loving, 2001), I will assume there is value in allowing
other ways of knowing space where they can interrogate each other. Interrogation
is a term used to depict the art and technique of allowing scientific knowledge and
local knowledge to co-evolve so as to build endogenous or sustainable science
32
(Bazin, 1993; Cajete, 1999; Harding, 1996; Iaccarino, 2003; International Council
for Science [ICSU], 2002; Sillitoe, 2007; Turnbull, 1997; Worsley, 1997).
For purposes of the discussion in this chapter, I also need to debunk the
erroneous popular view of scientists as uniquely distanced and objective and
science as impeccable (Harding, 1996). Scientists, like all human beings, work in
cultural and social contexts, they have passions and dreams and they accomplish
their goals within certain human limitations. There is also evidence that
mystification of science in science curricula impacts the way students view and
respond to school-based science (Sutherland, 2002; Hodson, 2003). On this point,
Kozulin (2003) argues that students appreciation of the specificity of scientific
approach and scientific language as distinct from the everyday one constitutes one
of the major factors contributing to the acquisition of scientific concepts (p. 29).
Kozulins (2003) observation is a valuable contribution to the discussion on the
development of endogenous science. It sets the conceptual tone for this chapter,
although the argument is not further developed in this chapter to maintain focus on
scientific and development activities in Africa.
THE NEED FOR ENDOGENOUS SCIENCE
Give people fish and you have fed them for a day, teach them how to fish and you
will have fed them for the rest of their lives. Although this proverb has become a
clich in public discourse, it captures very well the dire need for capacity building
in Africa. Subsequently, in this chapter, I argue that science teaching and learning
in Africa, in school and in community settings, must focus on the development of
endogenous science that can nourish the roots of capacity building in the continent.
The scientific activity located in Africa must be creatively integrated into everyday
life if lasting change in social welfare is to be attained from effective capacity
building.
In the last four decades, Africa has been largely targeted for capacity building.
Yet, the gains are dismal judging from general living conditions and extensive
material poverty and all its implications (United Nations, 2011). Based on the
conclusions drawn by several scholars (see ADEA, 2011; Dei, 2003, 2004;
Fagerlind & Saha, 1989), capacity building aid to African governments has, so far,
encouraged corruption and dampened creativity. Indeed, the problem of capacity
building is enormous and intriguing. This reality was, for instance, brought to the
fore during the 2009 Munk Debate on Foreign Aid in Toronto, Canada (Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation [CBC], 2009). The debate panel consisted of celebrated
international economists: Stephen Lewis (North American context), Hernando De
Soto (South American context), Dambiso Moyo (African context) and (Paul
Collier, European context). The panellist grappled with the question of whether aid
has done more harm than good in developing countries. The debate was framed
around the thesis of Moyos 2009 book Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how
there is a better way for Africa. Although the panellists differed in their emphasis
on how best to deliver development aid, it was unanimously argued that the roots
of capacity building must above all else be nourished in developing contexts.
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WANJA GITARI
Furthermore, although capacity building is the focus of development work in

Africa, in my experience, it is often regarded as development work suitable for
adults in villages and in post-secondary institutions; it is not equally promoted in
primary and secondary schools. This chapter advocates an approach that
incorporates youth and adults in long term efforts to build human capacity through
the development of endogenous science.
The lack of endogenous science continues to evoke far-reaching consequences.
Notable is the renewed urgency associated with the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals that focuses on, among other objectives, the reduction of
poverty and disease and adapting to imminent climate change (UN, 2011).
Concerning the latter, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in
Canada and the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom
(DFID) inaugurated a development initiative, the Climate Change Adaptation in
Africa (CCAA) to bring climate change awareness to Africans. Climate change due
to global warming has been described as the defining human development
challenge of the 21st Century (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
2008). Additionally, it is said that rural Africa is likely to suffer severely from the
effects of sporadic weather phenomena due to climate change (IDRC, 2007). IDRC
has also observed that Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate change
due to weak institutional capacity, limited engagement in environmental and
adaptation issues and a lack of validation of local knowledge (IDRC, 2007,
emphasis added). Additionally, the mandate of the United Nations Environmental
Programme (UNEP) is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring
for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to
improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations
(UNEP, 2011, emphasis added).
Several other organizations are actively involved in development work in
Africa. A quick search of the internet using the Google search engine gives an
indication of the science-related activity concerning social welfare. But there are
many more key community organizations whose information is not available
through the internet; their information can only be documented through networking
with key local informants and by conducting field visits (A. James, i personal
communication, February 15, 2011).
Adapting to climate change (and other development initiatives) will require a
shift in thinking for the recipients of programmes such as the CCAA. Arguably, in
order to have a lasting effect, the acquired attitudes of the mind and practical
approaches should not only be available to deal with current issues, but also with
the yet unknown woes in the future. In this regard, the long-term goal for sciencerelated development programmes, such as the CCAA, should be to create
endogenous or sustainable science.
Consequently, this chapter is devoted to a consideration of several related
issues. The fundamental issue is to explore how Africa might go forward in view of
poverty, ignorance and disease. First, I will provide the theoretical context for the
chapter. Secondly, I will highlight the pertinent literature. Thirdly, I will discuss
four key questions under two sections: building agency among youths and adults
34
and improvement of social welfare through alternative teaching and learning

approach. The four key questions are (i) going forward, how will the science
project in Africa make a sustainable and positive change in the way people solve
problems in their everyday lives? For instance, it is evident in the science
education literature that science education in marginalized socioeconomic contexts
does not seem to meaningfully impact everyday life, primarily due to lack of
student agency (Roth & Calabrese-Barton, 2004). (ii) How might student agency
be facilitated through school-based science? (iii) How will local knowledge be
validated within science-related development efforts? (iv)What is required in order
for rural people to mobilize science for the amelioration of suffering?
CULTURAL LEARNING APPROACH TO CAPACITY BUILDING
In science education literature, capacity building is couched in the language of

knowledge transfer. Further, the theoretical principle underlying knowledge
transfer is the cultural approach to learning (Lave, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991;
Rogoff, 2003; 1990; White & Siegel, 1984), with a focus on student agency and
relevant science (Aikenhead, 2006; Roth & Calabrese-Barton, 2004). Evidently,
the need for agency/relevance in students social cultural contexts has been at the
forefront of learning discourse, in the past and recent history of formal education
(see Dewey, 1938/1963; Freire, 1970; Nyerere, 1971, 1969; Vygotsky, 1986).
Indeed, in part, the development of the cultural approach is traced to discursive
traditions that highlight the importance of home, Indigenous and community
knowledge and expert-novice coaching (Engestrom, 2009).
Another key assumption specific to cultural approach to learning is the
understanding that individuals do not create knowledge in isolation. Instead, they
act on what they receive from collective formations (Engestrom, 1999; Lave &
Wenger, 1991; Vasquez, 2006; Rogoff, 1990; Roth & Lee, 2004). Using the
cultural approach, the less knowledgeable (novices) are helped by the more
knowledgeable (experts) through directing and encouraging based on the novices
entry knowledge levels (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Gradually, novices (in the case of
formal education, students) achieve a level of competence that makes possible
creative thinking, remembering and forming of associations among the relevant
questions, pertinent concepts and possible solutions. For instance, in the course of
questioning and appraising their living conditions or coding and decoding
information (Freire, 1970), both experts and novices modify the existing
information and materials to address new and existing problems. Gradually, as
individuals act in concert with others in the context of goal setting, mediating and
communicating, they meaningfully appropriate and transform received signs and
symbols of their culture (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Roth & CalabreseBarton, 2004; Roth & Lee, 2004).
Transformation of cultural elements is the consequence of tensions and
contradictions that arise from community activities. As with Frieres (1970)
literacy projects in South America, object-oriented actions inevitable result in
contradictions and tensions that lead to a transformation of the way subjects think,
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WANJA GITARI
the way they act upon their environment and the collective creation of new knowledge
(externalization). In this regard, Engestrom (2009) stresses that object-oriented
actions are always, explicitly or implicitly, characterized by ambiguity, surprise,
interpretation, sense-making and potential for change (p. 3). Further, Engestrom
(1999) observes that externalization reaches its peak when a new model for the
activity is designed and implemented. As the new model stabilizes, internalization
of its inherent ways and means again becomes the dominant form of learning and
development (p. 33). Ultimately, lasting development and learning is achieved
when skill, understanding and perspective are advanced to meet the needs of the
local culture (Mezirow, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Vasquez, 2006). The cultural approach
seeks to imitate parameters of learning that resonate with real life settings. The
practical application of the cultural learning theoretical stance is outlined later in
the chapter.
Arguably, learning that occurs in community development activities is
facilitated through everyday learning tools such as repeating information,
classifying, categorizing, predicting and inferring. The occurrence of repetitious
information in everyday life and the opportunities to classify, categorize, predict
and infer is what builds an individuals or groups interpretive knowledge
(Bransford & Schwartz, 1999, p. 71; see also Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1996).
Interpretive knowledge is the communities mind map that has networks of
concepts organised in an intuitive format to aid in future learning, further
knowledge network extensions and spontaneous and non-spontaneous retrieval of
information for solving problems in everyday life.
School learning is important in this regard because it gives the opportunities for
spontaneous and non-spontaneous acquisition and application of the pertinent
school-science concepts. Notably, both school-based learning and everyday
learning are important for the effective acquisition and use of information.
Panofsky, John-Steiner and Blackwell (1990) for instance, point out that school
learning gives opportunities for the exercising of higher psychological processes,
whereas, everyday contexts allow for immediacy of meaning (p.251).
In addition, Bransford, Brown, Cocking, Donovan & Pellegrino (2000) discuss
the conditions that promote the use of school-based science for problem solving in
everyday life. These include (i) the study of similar key attributes in the source
(school) and target (everyday life) settings as mediated by the teachers, by
addressing students prior conceptions of natural phenomena. (ii) The meaningful
application of one concept at a time, in varied real life settings. Such application
may be achieved, initially through the acquisition of a rich body of facts that is
organized into networks of ideas from which knowledge users can retrieve
information for application. Organization of knowledge into networks of ideas is
obtained through metacognitive practices. Metacognition involves helping learners
systematically reflect upon their thinking and their learning. (iii) The presence of
social, historical, psychological and cultural factors outside school that are
cognitively known and actively questioned by learners. In order to be effectively
redressed, the social, political, historical, psychological and cultural factors in the
students world must be clearly understood using school science concepts and local
36
knowledge. Furthermore, local knowledge can be integrated with school-based

concepts through mentoring and scaffolding by knowledgeable others in the
community. This is in addition to teachers efforts to promote learning through
students prior knowledge of school-based science concepts. (v) The presence of
motivation in the learner. Motivation is likely to manifest when students are
involved with something that has impact on others especially their local
community (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 61). (vi) Time investment: there must be
ample time for students to master the concepts and for the teacher or knowledgeable
others to demonstrate the application of learned concepts in different contexts
(learning transfer), especially where the focus is on the transformation of living
conditions.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING TRANSFER
Bransford et al. (2000) maintain that transfer from school to everyday environment
is the ultimate purpose of school-based learning (p. 78). The expectation that people
will use the knowledge acquired formally at school, in out-of-school contexts
assumes far transfer, for example in the use of the knowledge of titration in high
school chemistry to innovate a devise for water filtration in the village. Other forms
of transfer are vertical and near. Vertical transfer is the application of foundational
knowledge in the understanding of more complex ideas as in learning the patterns in
the periodic table and using that understanding to predict the chemical reactions of
different elements. Near transfer is applying a set of skills learned in one task to a
different but related task across disciplines, for example, graphing in mathematics
and graphing in geography (Bransford, et al., 2000).
The need for the transfer of scientific knowledge from the school context to
everyday life has been widely demonstrated in the literature (Aikenhead & Ogawa,
2007; Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Bransford, et al., 2000; Calabrese-Barton &
Tan, 2009; Roth & Calabrese-Barton, 2004; Roth & Lee, 2004; Sable, Howell &
Wilson, 2007). It is, for instance, argued that to a significant extent, cognitive and
affective aspects of far transfer are influenced by the micro and macro contexts of
school and everyday life: the political, social, economic aspects and so forth. And
as mentioned earlier, there is also much to be gained when school scientific
knowledge is informed by or informs the local knowledge in problem solving.
Sillitoe (2007) is for instance of the view that the learning process should be a
two-way affair, not only facilitating the adoption of scientifically informed ideas
by local communities but also the informing of scientific understanding with local
knowledge (p. 3). Increasingly science educators and curriculum policy-makers
are calling for such reciprocal informing, that would eventually facilitate far
learning transfer.
Consistently, educators advocate for science learning that not only will help
learners understand and explain natural phenomena by scientific means but also
motivate them to apply science in their environments, a consequence of taking
ownership (agency) of science concepts. As mentioned earlier, learners take
ownership when the content of their learning resonates with the experiences in
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their everyday lives. This is an issue of relevance (see for instance, AAAS, 2001;
Boaler, 1993; Canadian Ministers of Education [CME], 1995; Fensham, 1988;
Gagne, 1985; Griffiths, 2003; Haskell, 2001; Hodson, 1993; Howie, 2001; Hurd,
1997; Jenkins, 2003; Roth & Calabrese-Barton, 2004; Roth & Lee, 2004).
Globally and for several decades science educators and policy planners have
grappled with the problem of relevance. Focusing on relevance, the 5th
International Council of Associations for Science Education [ICASE], 1986
conference in Malaysia suggested that curricula topics be planned around issues in
everyday life such as health, food and agriculture, energy; land, water and mineral
resources; industry and technology, the environment and information technology
(Hodson, 1994; Kelly & Lewis, 1987). Accordingly, the ultimate goal for science
teaching and learning is for students and teachers to re-evaluate school science in
terms of its application in local situations. In furthering the concern for relevance,
Ogunniyi (1988) proposes the fusion of school science and Indigenous science
through the careful examination of students worldviews, followed by case by case
analysis of pertinent curricular elements. Additionally, Jegede (1994) suggests the
use of a conceptual ecocultural paradigm a state in which the growth and
development of an individuals perception of knowledge is drawn from the socio
cultural environment in which the learner lives and operates (p.130).
Other findings that have direct implication for the school-science project in
Africa explain the apparent lack of relevance of school-based science in
communities that are historically under-represented in the scientific enterprise and
that underachieve in school science. The lack of relevance has been noted (i) as the
result of inefficient science education programmes, in general and ineffective
science teaching and learning, in particular, (ii) cultural incongruity between
school and home environments evidenced in the epistemological polarity between
the scientific world view and learners world views, (iii) ethnic, racial and gender
bias in science curricula materials and practice and (iv) inadequate linkage of
industry, education and the science and technology sectors (Aikenhead & Mitchell,
2011; Atwater, 1998; Bamiro, 2007; Cajete, 1999; Cobern, 1991; Gitari, 2003, 2008;
Hampton, 1995; Howie, 2001, Jenkins, 2003; 1996; Lemke, 2001; Ogawa, 1995;
Thisen, 1993), among others.
In the remainder of the chapter, the four questions posed earlier will be discussed:
(i) how will the science project in Africa make a sustainable and positive change in
the way people solve problems in their everyday lives? (ii) How might student
agency be facilitated through school-based science? (iii) How will local knowledge
be validated within science-related development efforts? (iv) What is required in
order for rural people to mobilize science for the amelioration of suffering?
BUILDING AGENCY AMONG YOUTHS AND ADULTS
There are currently excellent ideas in the science education literature for framing
relevant science curricula for capacity building in developing contexts. A few of
these approaches will be highlighted here. One of the most innovative is Hodsons
(1999) framework of teaching about science, teaching science, doing science; and
38
teaching students about their world, our world and the world (Hodson, 1993).
Using Hodsons frameworks science is demystified and students are effectively
motivated to find ways in which science concepts can be applicable to solve
problems in everyday life and to take action where necessary. Importantly,
approaching the teaching of science through the students worlds gives them the
opportunity to identify with aspects of science that resonate with their experiences
in everyday life. Students world can be integrated through community
development projects, as described later in the chapter. By identifying with the
needs in their worlds, students acquire the agency necessary for action on a daily
basis. Hodsons (1993, 1999) formulations are applicable to the existing challenges
in science education in Africa and greatly satisfy the cultural approach to learning
that was discussed earlier.
Further, as reported in Wellington (2001), Millar has provided questions that
educators should ask themselves when designing and implementing science
curricula. Millars curriculum design inventory is instructive for the purpose of
capacity building because it prompts educators to intentionally reconsider the
purpose of engaging in educational acts, such as the selecting of topics. To
illustrate the practical application of Millars inventory, I will show the kinds of
curricular decisions that might be involved in a rural agricultural economy such as
my village, Kirumi, in Kenya.
Millars curricular inventory has four categories bearing the codes, U, D, C and
X, respectively. U codes for everyone ought to understand this at an appropriate
level, for utilitarian reasons (i.e., it is practically useful). D codes for everyone
ought to understand this at an appropriate-level, for democratic reasons (i.e., it is
necessary knowledge for participation in decision making). C codes for everyone
ought to understand this at an appropriate level, for cultural reasons (i.e., it is a
necessary component of an appreciation of science as a human enterprise).
X codes for it is not necessary that everyone know this. It need not be included in
a science curriculum whose aim is public understanding of science (quoted in
Wellington, 2001, p. 30, emphasis in the original). The topics are listed from
number 1 to number 12: (1) the germ theory of disease, (2) the heliocentric model
of the solar system, (3) the carbon cycle, (4) the reactivity series for metals, (5) the
electron magnetic spectrum, (6) radioactivity and ionizing radiation, (7) newtons
laws of motion, (8) energy: its conservation and dissipation, (9) an understanding
of simple series and parallel electric currents, (10) the theory of plate tectonics,
(11) Darwins theory of evolution, (12) acids and bases.
In considering Millars inventory for Kirumis curricular purposes, it seems that
some topics equally fit in more than one category. For example, the germ theory of
disease could be taught for its application (utilitarian aspect), for individual and
community health, as well as for helping with decision making (democratic
reasons) that affect the local community. Democratic decision making might
concern the availability of contaminant free drinking water, from the local river,
River Ganga. Other topics for utilitarian and democratic purposes are acids and
bases, radioactivity and ionizing radiation, Darwins theory of evolution, the
heliocentric model of the solar system, energy: its conservation and dissipation and
39
WANJA GITARI
the carbon cycle. The latter four topics would especially help students acquire
relevant and balanced knowledge with respect to the causes and consequences of
climate change. The Kirumi students could learn the following mainly for
utilitarian and cultural purposes: reactivity series for metals, the electromagnetic
spectrum, an understanding of simple series and parallel electric currents and
Newtons laws of motion.
Although a discussion with respect to the cultural appropriateness of the topics
and the extent of their coverage to enhance knowledge transfer to everyday life
cannot be fully developed in this chapter, aspects of the question of knowledge
transfer that are within the scope of this chapter will be discussed later.
One of the most instructive projects in the use of school science ideas in real life
situations has been carried out by Aikenhead (2000). Aikenhead and team
members developed teaching units that have relevant content for the First Nations
residents in Saskatchewan. The project specifically facilitates the students
identification with tribal roots by using applicable and appropriate cultural
content (Aikenhead, 2000, p. 4). For example, the cultural knowledge of
manufacturing snow shoes has been used to motivate students to study synthetic
materials, a domain of the discipline of chemistry, thus promoting cross-cultural
science teaching and learning. Such cross-cultural teaching and learning honours
knowledge integration and may result in the successful combined use of local
knowledge and school-based science to solve problems in everyday life, as
advanced in this chapter.
But Aikenhead (2006) also cautions about the importance of paying attention to
the various mechanisms by which school-based science concepts might be adapted
by pupils, through assimilation, acculturation or enculturation. Arguably, the extent
and quality of the transfer of school-based science to everyday life depends on
which of these mechanisms is prevalent in the science education setting. Assimilation
involves a loss of self determination and cultural identity. Enculturation is expected
where the ethos of school science is congruent with the everyday culture of the
student. Acculturation is characterized by the appropriation by students of
applicable aspects of school-based science resulting to transformative everyday
thinking: everyday thinking is a combination of commonsense thinking and some
scientific thinking, often depending on context (Aikenhead, 2006, p. 19).
Another significant research project that has dealt with knowledge use in
real-life contexts was conducted by Calabrese-Barton (2003). The design of her
study is based on the cultural approach to learning and Frerian (1970) model of
consciousness-raising. The study involved middle school students in an inner city
school in the United States of America. Using critical questioning and consensus
building, akin to Freires thematic analysis, the students made positive change in
their community by constructing a playground in a space that previously served as
a dumping ground. Calabrese-Barton (2003) found that most of the students
acquired agency from the new awareness they had of their own abilities and
responsibilities to use the knowledge acquired in school for the betterment of their
community. Arguably, Calabrese-Bartons after school programme model and
40
cultural approach to community development or object of activity have potential to

inform the science education project in Africa.
A unique contribution to the ideas about the use of scientific knowledge in real
life, or life worlds, has been made jointly by Roth and Calabrese-Barton (2004). In
particular, the idea that scientific literacy consists of not only science concepts, but
also of how science concepts function synergistically with other ideas from
politics, sociology, mathematics, economics, religion and so forth, is instructive.
Accordingly, Roth and Calabrese-Barton, (2004) posit that:
scientific literacy is a property of collective situations and characterize
interactions irreducible to characteristics of individuals; science is not a single
normative framework for rationality but merely one of many resources (fibers)
that people can draw on in everyday collective decision making processes. We
now suggest that scientific literacy is promoted ... for participation in the
necessary political life of the community (p.158).
Let me further explain scientific literacy by using the local river, River Ganga,
in my village, Kirumi. Earlier I mentioned River Ganga in connection with
democratic decision making for safe drinking water. Scientific literacy with regard
to the river would therefore include knowledge about the rivers water purity,
ecosystem, animal and plant habitats, riverbank land use (for instance, to what
extend the land owners who cultivate on the slopes of the river understand the
causes and consequences of river degradation), local politics, economic condition
and so forth. Thus, scientific literacy is understood from a holistic standpoint.
So far I have highlighted contributions, from the general science education
literature, that pertain to student agency. But it would also be instructive to know
what ideas emanate specifically from the African continent about student agency?
African science education literature does not directly address the problem of
student agency in science education. Nevertheless, it reveals a wealth of insights.
In this regard, African science educational researchers have investigated the
implications of Indigenous knowledge and teachers and students worldviews on
the teaching and learning of science (see for example, Jegede, 1994; Jegede &
Okebukola, 1991; Ogunniyi, 1988, 2005; Swift, 1992; Urevbu, 1991; Yakubu,
1994). Specific to general agency, that is, the use of school-based knowledge to
solve problems in everyday life, Urevbu (1991) stresses that,
people should become aware of the issues in science, technology and society
(STS), [in order to] improve their livelihood by modifying and improving
traditional and modern technologies. [Research and Development] should not be
an activity left to scientists and technologists in laboratories but rather it should
be built by making improvements on existing technology traditionally evolved
in the village communities (p. 77).
Further, building on the available literature and empirical research, Gitari (2006)
uncovers epistemological tools for knowing in everyday life. The tools are highly
41
WANJA GITARI
relevant in terms of helping teachers conceptualize the differences and connections

between knowing in science and everyday life. Ultimately, the tools help in the
building of endogenous science. They include direct praying and contemplation,
trial and error and experimenting, intuition (listening to the body), apprenticeship,
adapting ideas and and guarding knowledge. Evidently, the literature is convincing
that the science educational scene in Africa is ready for a shift in thinking along the
lines of knowledge construction using cultural approach to improve living
conditions.
IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING CONDITIONS THROUGH ALTERNATIVE TEACHING
AND LEARNING APPROACH
Endogenous or sustainable science requires a transformation of the way the

community perceives its everyday life or existential reality: a critical shift in
thinking. Such transformation in thinking occurs if motivated by the need for a
different living reality. For this purpose, it is necessary that people reach a point
where they envision and desire a different reality. They must subsequently ask
themselves a series of questions: How is our current reality? How did we get here?
Do we like where we are? What dont we like? What changes do we wish to see
happen? What should we do to move from here to where we would rather be? In
the terminology of Friere (1970), they must undergo a consciousness-raising.
In his consciousness raising projects with the disenfranchised communities in
Latin America, Freire (1970) observes that the education process can be used to
create agency in those who are dispossessed. (See, Giroux & Simon, 1989, for
similar ideas with respect to formal education). Subsequently, Freire (1970)
proposes that change agents (subjects) be given the opportunity to name the factors
that hinder their communities from changing the course of their lives. This he
refers to as coding. After naming the factors that inform their reality, the subjects
should then reflect on how each factor influences their lives and how factors
interact to create the lived reality. This, Freire (1970) refers to as decoding. Coding
and decoding of the themes in peoples lives exposes the contradictions inherent in
the world. In sum,
decoding requires moving from the abstract to the concrete; this requires
moving from the part to the whole and then returning to the parts; this in turn
requires that the Subject recognize himself [sic] in the object (the coded
existential situation) and recognize the object as a situation in which he finds
himself, together with other Subjects. If the decoding is well done, this
movement of flux and reflux from the abstract to the concrete which occurs in
the analysis of a coded situation leads to the supersedence of the abstraction by
the critical perception of the concrete, which has already ceased to be a dense
impenetrable reality (Emphasis in the original, Freire, 1970, p. 96).
An important consequence of coding and decoding is the co-existent force
characterized by tensions and contradictions. In this regard, Freire (1970) argues
42
that coding and decoding of lived reality generates contradictions and tensions. The
contradictions and tensions eventually lead to a transformation of subjects
thinking and an alteration of their means of acting upon their environment leading
to the collective creation of new knowledge, as explained earlier. Freires (1970)
approach is well supported by theorizing in the social sciences on thinking,
knowing and and knowledge-use. As discussed earlier the literature maintains that
when people are involved in goal setting, deliberating on their goals and acting
upon their goals, they achieve a meaningful understanding of received information
and knowledge, that is, lived reality (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Roth &
Calabrese-Barton, 2004; Roth & Lee, 2004).
Yet, it is important to note again that the construction of new knowledge is not
conceived as the act of a single individual but of the collective: individuals do not
create knowledge, they reproduce or transform it by acting on what they receive
from collective formations, or the larger society (Engestrom & Miettinen, 1999, p.
10). Importantly, the community aspect of knowledge creation discussed here
resonates with ways of knowing in majority of cultural groups in Africa. The
knowledge creation approach is therefore culturally relevant in the attempt to
improve social welfare and advance the science education project in Africa.
Admittedly, the use of coding and decoding of existing realities (thematic
analysis) to help integrate the school scientific way of knowing with the local ways
of knowing is not easy to implement within the current African education systems
(Dei, 2004). The nature and structure of the education systems and the content of
the underlying policies largely militate against such a goal (Gitari, 2008). Instead,
teaching is geared toward standardized tests leaving no room for the exploration of
how school science may be integrated with local knowledge for problem solving in
everyday life, or for far transfer. It is necessary to stress that for both adults and
school going youth, it is crucial that knowledge and skills that are useful for
problem solving in everyday life become common knowledge within the
community. Indeed, there is evidence to support the claim that everyday thinking is
more active in students thought processes than school-based science as recourse to
problem solving in everyday life (Gitari, 2009a).
Alternative approaches to teaching and learning science refer to a model that is
markedly different from the existing ones for promoting the creation of
endogenous science in Africa. I have already mentioned that the existing model
focuses on adults in villages and and that the formal science education setting does
not emphasize the building of endogenous science. The model I am proposing here
involves science teaching and learning by adult villagers, pupils, teachers and
facilitators and/or researchers in the course of participating in rural development
projects through emancipatory action research. Emancipatory action research
typically follows dissatisfaction with prevailing conditions, for example,
dissatisfaction with the ecological conditions of a local river. Following, decisions
on the suitable cooperative strategies and action research principles are evaluated
based on the cultural approach. The action research process involves collaborating
in framing the questions, deciding how to go about finding answers or the right
cause of action, agreeing on what counts as evidence and resolving emerging
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WANJA GITARI
contradictions and tensions. Furthermore, the action research process follows the
principles of cooperative learning, such as observe, plan, act and reflect (Atkinson,
1994; Engestrom, 1999; Moss, Girard, & Haniford, 2006; Roth & Lee, 2004;
Vadeboncoeur, 2006).
Although action research has traditionally been associated with the need to
improve professional skill and performance (see for instance, Feldman & Atkin,
1995; Elliot, 1992; McNiff, 1988; Zeichner, 1993), in educational research it has
emerged as a methodology that encompasses a wide range of social endeavours
(Noffke, 1997). Ladkin (2007) adds that the production of practical knowledge in
the everyday lives of participants is a central goal of action research. In this
respect, Ladkin (2007) defines action research as a research methodology grounded
in the belief that research with human beings should be participative and
democratic: researchers working within this frame are charged with being
sensitive to issues of power, open to plurality of meanings and interpretations and
able to take into account the emotional, social, spiritual and political dimension of
those with whom they interact (p. 479). Furthermore, with regard to formal
education Grundy (1987) points out that emancipation is one of the three keystones
of curricula concerns: emancipatory curriculum entails a reciprocal relationship
between self-reflection and action (p. 19).
To illustrate the emancipatory action research approach, I will use a hypothetical
object of activity situated in my village, Kirumi. The object of activity is the
reclamation of the local river, River Ganga. For the activity, youth and adults
would establish learning relationships around the short term goal to rehabilitate
River Ganga. And for the purpose of the envisioned river reclamation project, the
pupils and their teachers at the local secondary school are considered a part of the
rural community in which their school is located and to which they are invited to
give back. The giving back is facilitated through the proposed river reclamation
emancipatory action research project. In addition, science learning and improvement
of living conditions is anticipated.
In particular, it is envisioned science learning and the transformation of social
welfare will occur through the establishment and continued participation in an
epistemological space that I refer to as the Community Advancement and Innovation
Centre (CAIC). [See Appendix A for a sketch of the organizational structure for
the centre.] The CAIC would be based on the principles of the cultural approach,
which requires the youth (students) and the adults to collectively agree on the need
to reclaim the river. Following the agreement, they should work together to find
information on river reclamation repertoire from the everyday knowledge domain
and school-based science. The centre should help to sustain and move the gains
from emancipatory action research projects into the future, while integrating and
legitimating local knowledge.
This might mean that the resulting Community Advancement and Innovation
centres in various parts of Africa should be located within the local secondary
schools to enable material and knowledge sharing. Such school-community
collaboration would contribute to the schools science departments, specifically
and libraries, as well as facilitate the acquiring of knowledge by youth and adults in
44
the communities. Further, the centres would promote school and community
partnerships in an infrastructure that would sustain the mutual learning and transfer
of school science and everyday knowledge even after the community development
facilitators have long left the field.
In sum, what I am advancing here is, the view that the fostering of agency
should be the guiding principle in science teaching and learning and that changefostering research methodologies such as emancipatory action research might make
important contribution to the science project in Africa. Emancipatory action
research would grant the right conditions for youth and adults to cooperatively set
goals, pose problems, ask questions, find answers and critically evaluate the
solutions for implementation. Indeed cooperative activities are the hallmark for
adult learning (Merizow, 1991; Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998). And as
already stated, science education literature posits that school going youth are
motivated to engage in learning activities when they can determine the topic to be
investigated and when the learning activity involves seeking a solution to an
existing problem with which they identity (Aikenhead, 2001; Bransford, et al.,
2000; Hodson, 2003).
It is also expected that group discussions on how to solve the problem, and
mediation from local knowledge experts will heighten students awareness of
everyday knowledge (their everyday understanding) as a likely source for problem
solving tools (Gitari, 2009a). For instance, the river reclamation problem would
require exchange of information and judicial questioning of the information by
individuals within the community through leadership and encouragement by those
who are knowledgeable about river reclamation. As new information is acquired
and the already available information modified, the ways in which people relate to
each other and understand the conditions of the river would be transformed. These
changes might lead, in a cyclical pattern involving feedback and output loops, to
the creation of new ideas and artifacts, thereby helping residents mobilize
knowledge to ameliorate suffering. For example, the changes might lead to the
transformation of the way people perceive their reality, ranging from the provision
of clean abundant water, to environmental protection.
As already stated, the CAI centres would help enhance the long term goals in
community development projects. The purpose of the long term goals would be to
engender life-long learning of scientific and everyday concepts and skills
concerning everyday life in the local area. In the case of the river project, the
reclamation would be short term. However, the long-term benefits of the project
would be the residents increased capacity and confidence to deal with other
problems using a knowledge-and-action-framework. That is to say, for instance,
the goal of reclaiming the local river should also involve discussions about the big
picture of climate change, in effect educating the youth and adults about global
environmental issues.
Specifically, the environmental problems in the community are to be framed
from a global perspective, as they are not necessarily unique to Kirumi village or
the River Ganga. For example the reasons behind the depletion of snow on Mount
Kenya are global in scope. However, the community still must focus on what can
45
WANJA GITARI
be accomplished at the local level. Evidently, the catchment area for the local river
(River Ganga) in my village in Kenya includes the Mt. Kenya ice cap, which is
gradually melting away. Additionally, land use practices such as farming have
depleted River Ganga of most of its riverine vegetation, thereby exposing the river
banks to natural and human caused erosion. Hopefully the envisioned CAI centre
will create an epistemological space where youths and adults might apply their
scientific thought processes outside of school with the hope of establishing a
problem-solving connection between school science and local knowledge. In the
long term, projects such as the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA,
mentioned at the introduction of this chapter) will be characterised by sustainable
integration of knowledge by youth and adults from school-based science, local
knowledge and other spheres of knowing in everyday life.
SUMMARY
There are many reasons (for example, political, historical, cultural and
epistemological) why school-based science, a universal human activity, is not
readily applicable for problem solving in everyday life to improve social welfare.
In this chapter, I have argued that science students and teachers working in
cooperation with community members and researchers could transform social
welfare while developing student agency. That way, school-based science could be
fully mobilized to help ameliorate the challenging living conditions in most of
Africa. Referring to the published literature and case examples of teaching and
learning approaches, I have shown that mobilizing school-based science will
require, most importantly the integration of local knowledge with scientific
knowledge.
The desired integration might be achieved by conducting school science related
community development projects using a cultural approach. The key principle in
the cultural approach is that transferable knowledge is best learned using
cooperative principles where novices are mentored by knowledgeable members of
the community (experts). Novices might work with experts through emancipatory
action research projects to bring about the necessary changes. Change will
inevitably be realized when tensions and contradictions in the living conditions
demand the creation of a new reality.
The application of the cultural learning theoretical position is that positive
impact of school-based science in the everyday lives of the African people will be
gainfully achieved through engagement with real life issues as anticipated in
development projects. Consequently, any school science related activities
that involve community development should be cognizant of society and the
constituent parts of history, current reality and community vision. Participants of
such projects should comprise of youth (novices) and adults (experts). The primary
role for the experts is to help novices identify local knowledge and skills suitable
for the set goals, whereas both novices and experts incorporate pertinent concepts
from school science and local knowledge in the problem solving activities. One
way to sustain active knowledge integration and the application of the knowledge
46
is to establish Community Advancement and Innovation (CAI) centres where

youth and adults can deliberate on ideas and address local concerns (for example
the rehabilitation of a river) and global issues (understanding and creatively
responding to weather patterns due to global warming).
The cultural approach learning principles especially resonate with local ways of
knowing in Africa and much of the community development projects where
villagers are involved in the improvement of aspects of their lives. Science
education and community development endeavours can tap into the already
existing ways of knowing in African communities to empower Africans to acquire
sustainable science that will continue to inspire creativity now and in the future. At
the centre piece of learning in community projects and the CAI centres will be
scientific methodology. Scientific methodology is the basis of the explanatory
power of science. It is marked by systematic thinking, suspension of judgement,
peer critique, consensus building and dissemination of findings. This methodology
should be appropriated in Africa to build sustainable or endogenous science
through science education and community development projects that have a
scientific import.
In concluding, it is necessary to acknowledge that none of the ideas advanced in
this chapter can be implemented without a revision of the education systems and
science education policies, adequate supply of materials and human resources and
the reasonable cooperation by citizens, politicians, parents and teachers. The role
of science teachers is especially critical. Science teachers must first accept as
transformative and of practical value, the suggested teaching and learning
approaches before they (teachers) can adopt them into their philosophies of
teaching. For that reason pre-service and in-service science teacher education
should be planned with the implementation of these approaches in mind. As such, a
discussion of the training of teachers for the purpose of the development of
endogenous science in Africa deserves full treatment in a separate paper.
NOTE
COMMUNITY ADVANCEMENT AND INNOVATION CENTRE
What is Community Advancement and Innovation (CAI) centre?
It is a physical and cultural entity that embodies a desirable epistemological space. Within such an
entity, knowledgeable people and knowledge seekers from the community would meet to learn, discuss
and articulate matters concerning issues that might be taken up using scientific knowledge, broadly
defined. It is expected that such articulation will involve integration of knowledge from all facets of
learning: economics, mathematics, literature, politics, religion, biology, physics, chemistry, indigenous
knowledge and so forth. For the purpose of the setting up of a CAI centre, a community is be defined as
several individuals who identify with families and clans and who share or are interested in sharing
similar learning experiences and, or cultural characteristics (i.e., spoken language, marriage tradition,
child rearing etiquette, food preferences).
What is its purpose?
(i) To exchange information within the community. People who have acquired advanced skills and
knowledge of herbal cures for certain ailments can share the information with the community.
(ii) Evaluate incoming information: the community would engage in questions such as, given that
electricity is a new phenomenon in our village, what are its ramifications? That is, how will it impact
47
WANJA GITARI
on the way we currently live our everyday lives? What are the positive effects of electricity in/on our
lives? What are the negative effects of electricity in/on our lives? How should we move forward,
with the reality of rural electrification?
(iii)Synthesize knowledge: How are heat and light from electricity similar to or different than heat and
light from traditional fire? To engage such a question, an electrician from the community would be
requested to inform the community about the similarities and differences of the heat and light
generated by electricity and traditional fire.
(iv) Utilize information: Community members would engage with questions such as, how else might we
utilize electricity to improve the conditions of our lives? That is, to do the things that we could not
do with traditional fire?
(v) Create and appraise everyday knowledge ii : In what areas of our lives are we experiencing
challenges? What new perspectives can we bring to these areas? How do we go about creating new
knowledge given our understanding of electricity and fire as scientific phenomenon?
Where will it be located?
The CAI centre would be located in a designated area in a local secondary or primary school, or in a
suitable area within other institutional campuses, e.g., church.
Who will be involved?
Key elders who are knowledgeable about everyday life in the traditional setting, schooled people
(retired or actively employed) in the community, such as agriculturalists, forestry managers, science
teachers, nurses, doctors, clergy, sociologists, economists, linguists and other knowledge seekers would
be involved in learning at the CAI centre. Their learning would be coordinated and facilitated by a
coordinator and researchers.
What will be the activities?
Volunteer participants would meet bi-weekly for three hours, with a nutritional break after one and
half hours, to exchange information, evaluate incoming information, synthesize knowledge, utilize
information and create new knowledge.
What will be the duties of the facilitators?
Coordinator: The coordinator would be highly conversant with the cultural dynamics of the
community. From time to time, she or he will need to enlist the help of informants in order to tap into
most of the human resources in the community. The coordinator will consult key people (traditional
knowledge experts, schooled individuals, etc.), set the time and place for meetings and invite people to
attend.
Researchers: If necessary the researchers would conduct research to document (i) the social, cultural
and financial dynamics involved in the setting up of the centre, (ii) the details concerning the types of
information exchanged, how incoming information is evaluated, synthesized, utilized and the new
knowledge that is proposed.
What will be the procedure?
Activity details should be determined by project participants and facilitators..
NOTES
i
ii
48
Dr. Angela James is a senior lecturer of science education at the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal,
South Africa and the current secretary and treasurer of the International Organization for Science
and Technology Education (IOSTE).
Everyday knowledge is the facts, information, skills and procedures that are known and/or applied
by the community or by individuals in the course of their lives. Some of the everyday knowledge is
traditional, transient, or foreign. Traditional knowledge is categorized as such, if, a significant
proportion of the population [60% or more of the adult population, 18 years and above]), maintain
the knowledge has existed in the community for many generations. Transient knowledge is,
according to a significant proportion of the population, ideas and skills that were introduced within
the last ten years and are in the process of being incorporated into the communitys bank of
knowledge. Foreign knowledge refers to ideas and skill that were, according to a significant
proportion of the population, introduced within the last ten years and are in the process of being

incorporated into the communitys knowledge network. See Gitari (2006) for a discussion on
knowledge strands in a rural community in Kenya.
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54
A. ASABERE-AMEYAW AND S. J. AYELSOMA
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND SCIENCE

LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
Language is crucial to the teaching and learning of science. It is used in negotiating

defined outcomes in science learning. Words, tenses and sentence structure used in
communicating science concepts affect the way learners respond during a teachinglearning encounter. Though non-verbal modes of communication (signs, body
movements or contacts, gestures, shapes, structures and colour patterns) can aid
teaching, vocal and or verbal communications appear to be more effective in humans.
There is an established way of talking science. For example, language conventions
are used in arguing or debating issues in science, formulating hypotheses or
communicating inferences and in negotiating meaning by questioning, paraphrasing
or elaborating during scientific interactions with learners. Learners are encouraged
to express their ideas and to question evidence in investigations and in public
science issues. Their input influences the course of science lessons. They are often
encouraged to take some responsibility for science investigations and for their own
learning, but this will not materialize if learners are unable to communicate
effectively in the language of science. Hence, the precise language of any of the
sciences is likely to put a considerable demand on learners.
The parallels or links between science concept learning and second language
learning such as conceptual understanding of science concepts as presented in the
language of instruction and oral and literacy skills needed to communicate in both
science and language are remarkably strong (Kessler, Quinn & Fathman, 1992).
These links as observed by Kessler et al. (1992) is corroborated by Lee, Fradd and
Sutman (1995) who contended that learning the vocabulary of science in English
can become particularly complicated for language minority students when words
are not translatable between English and their first language. Comparable terms
and parallel ways of considering ideas may not exist across languages, and if they
do exist, they may not be used with the same frequency or manner. As a result,
learners are likely to struggle to express themselves in conveying meanings and
thereby produce large quantities of talk or utterances. In the same study, Lee et al.
(1992) asserted that by saying too little or too much, learners may give the
impression that they do not understand when they simply lack specific language or
communication patterns to express precise meanings. It is common to see learners
who are learning English as a second language, especially younger learners, having
difficulty in interpreting the meaning of logical connectors (e.g. if, because,
however, consequently) which may signal similarity or contradiction, cause and
effect, reason and result and chronological or logical sequence in science content
learning (Lemke, 1990).
Difficulties in speaking and writing English are factors that limit the
performance of Chinese-Australian students in science (McRobbie & Tobin, 1996).
Limited English language proficiency has been noted to be a major causal factor
for the low abilities or potentials for academic success in the sciences and the
under representations of such populations in advanced science classes and careers
requiring advanced level science skills in developed countries (Sutman, 1993).
Belamy (1999), reporting for the United Nations on the State of the worlds
children, mentioned that one major obstacle identified as contributory factor to
dropout from basic level of education in developing world is the use of the former
colonial language such as English, French, Portuguese or Spanish in the delivery of
lessons. The report further added that if the medium of instruction in school is a
language not spoken at home (or not the first language of the learner) and in
particular, when the parents are not literate, then the learning problems increase
and accumulate and the chances of dropping out of school increases. This is even
more so in science because of the Latin and Greek repository of science words,
which may not have their English equivalents.
In this paper, we review the existing knowledge on the effect of language
proficiency on science concept learning.
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
Two levels of language proficiency exist basic interpersonal communicative

skills and cognitive academic language proficiency. The basic interpersonal communicative skills concept represents the language of natural informal conversation.
Basic interpersonal communicative skills are used when talking about everyday
things in concrete situations. That is, situations in which the context provides cues
that make understanding not totally dependent on verbal interaction alone (see
Cummins, 1984, 1991; Skutnabb-Kangus, 1981). Cummins (1984) refers to
this everyday conversational ability as context embedded or contextualized
communication. In context embedded or contextualized communication, the
conversation deals with familiar events that require that the speakers react and
respond to each other. Cognitive academic language proficiency, however, is the
type of language proficiency needed to read, to dialogue, to debate and to provide
written responses (Cummins, 1984; Krashen & Biber, 1987). Learners who are yet
to develop their cognitive academic proficiency could be at a disadvantage in
learning science and other academic subject matter.
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION PROFICIENCY AND SCIENCE LEARNING
Proficiency in language of instruction is a key determinant to science achievement

(Yakubu, 1976; Ayelsoma, 2008). For a learner to be able to understand scientific
concepts and communicate effectively using such concepts, the learner must first
understand the language in which the concepts are being presented. Clearly, school
56
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
learning and performance are influenced by complex social, economic, historical

and cultural factors including language (Amedeker, 1998; Anamuah-Mensah,
Otuka & Ngman-Wara, 2006). As a result, the less than friendly clash of cultures
within the science classroom might lead to the loss of meaningful learning of
science necessary for useful application in understanding nature outside the
learning environment. The learning of what is therefore central to science is
inevitably lost within a system which legitimizes an imposed culture (language)
over the life-world experiences of the learner. Language of the learner is key to the
life-word experiences of the learner, and any teaching-learning enterprise that does
not adapt itself to the home language of the learner will tend to promote rote
learning. Most probably, most teachers are not unaware that imposed instructional
language often leads to rote learning and poor achievement by learners.
In discussing the language of instruction for exceptional bilingual children,
Skutnabb-Kangus (1981) postulated that it is a common misconception that
children who have limited English proficiency or who are bilingual, should be
taught in English language. This judgement was based on fears that such children
will have difficulty developing language skills and so will be confused by bilingual
instruction and thus will require more time than others to master the English
language. Some educators feel that it is in the interest of the child to provide
instruction in one language, and invariably the choice is English. Yet, for many
children, such reasoning ignores one critical factor the learners ability to
comprehend what is presented - which is the basis for most learning.
In measuring the learners ability or mastery of a concept, instructors often
initiate questioning and response systems to determine the mastery level of the
concepts that they teach. This is mostly done by not using the native language of
learners. The language policy in the Ghanaian educational system recognizes
English language as the medium of instruction (Government White Paper, 2005).
The problem is not with the perceived competencies for a multilingual society the
language that one might perceive as the home language may actually be the
learners second language. Thus, implementing a language policy has implication
for determining the real achievement of learners who have to learn the language of
instruction as a third language.
The preference of English language for instruction in Ghana is informed by the
use of English for national issues and probably the fact that Ghana has only one
official language English. But will this need for national language identity
translate the real achievement of learners in their chosen fields of interest? This
undoubtedly will introduce a stress as learners must first master English language
before learning the language of his/her chosen field of interest thus slowing
progress and development. Real achievement should not be tied down to second
language use.
In Tanzania, education at the first grades of schooling is given solely in the
home language or mother tongue (Osafehinti & Nabie, 2001) whereas in Namibia,
a total of 10 Indigenous languages are retained as official languages of instruction
in the initial grades of schooling (Broch-Utne, 1997). Though this practice might
not be the best, it nonetheless emphasizes the relative importance that these
57
countries attach to developing the first language of the child and using it as the
basis for further language acquisition and concept development.
HOME LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE CONCEPT LEARNING
Studies that compare the use of native language and English language as medium
of instruction for concept acquisition have shown that limited English proficiency
inhibited students science achievement when learning was in English (Bamgbose,
1984; Curtis & Millar, 1988; Tobin & McRobbie, 1996; Brock-Utne, 1997; Torres
& Zeidler, 2002; August, Artiz & Mazrum, 2010). In Nigeria (Bamgbose, 1984),
and in Namibia (Brock-Utne, 1997), have shown that where a foreign language is
used, majority of learners are not able to exercise their conceptual potential. The
performance of learners in these studies was remarkable where assessment items
were translated into the home language.
Similarly, in TIMSS-2003 (Trends In Mathematics and Sciences Studies
2003) in which test in mathematics and science were administered in English to
Ghanaian level eight students, there was a strong positive relationship between low
achievement and non-frequent use of the language of the test (and therefore
language of instruction) in the home. This situation was also true for science
achievement (Anamuah-Mensah, Asabere-Ameyaw & Mereku, 2007). There could
be many factors that can influence learners performance but a major determinant
that needs consideration is the degree to which learners are bilingual or
multilingual and can use this facility in language in the learning of science.
GENDER, LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND CONCEPT ACQUISTITION IN SCIENCE
It is a common argument that boys dominate in the sciences, especially in the

physical sciences. Anderson (2006) contends that girls prefer biological sciences to
physical sciences. In the TIMSS-2003, report analysis of the performance of
Ghanaian eight graders by Anamuah-Mensah et al. (2007), boys generally
performed better than their female counterparts in science and mathematics. Other
studies (e.g. Caygill, Sturrock & Chamberlain, 2007), however, saw no significant
differences in performance in science between boys and girls and in certain cases
girls performing better in science and mathematics, for example in Jordan (Martin,
Mullis, Gonzales & Chrostowski, 2004).
A number of studies (e.g. Lee, Fradd & Sutman, 1995; Maghsudi, 2007) have
shown that females often perform better than males in tests in English language,
that is, females stand a better chance to understand and perform on disciplines that
required the use of reading and understanding in English. Lee et al. (1995) reports
the use of more language in both oral and written communication by girls than
boys even though they may not use more of science vocabulary. Though girls use
language orally than boys, the chance of girls performing in disciplines requiring
reading and writing was not established by Lee et al. (1995). Aguuire (1996)
suggests that girls are able to communicate their knowledge better orally than
written and they do this better than boys. There may be difference in performance
58
in science between boys and girls as a result of the type of test format used.
Interestingly, girls have been observed to generally score higher than boys in
science if an open-ended test items are used but and the converse is the case when
multiple test items are used (Brantmeier, 2004).
The difference in performance or achievement between male and female
learners in science is insignificant even though there is overwhelming evidence that
females are more proficient in languages. We therefore wish to state that
performance in science though has a direct correlation with proficiency in the
language of instruction, there are other determinants in high achievement in
science.
SCIENTIFIC LITERACY AND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
To improve upon scientific literacy, there is compelling need to consider which

language will encourage the development of such skills as reading, writing and
communicating. To achieve scientific literacy, emphasis should be laid on sound
teaching and learning strategies that are sensitive to learners needs. For children,
learning a second language for instruction, comprehension of new science concepts
can be difficult. Teachers teaching in a language other than the native language of
learners should be mindful of learners native language. Abandoning previously
acquired knowledge could be a challenging process that may be accomplished only
superficially. This is particularly relevant for learners who come from diverse
cultural backgrounds with worldviews that may differ from those reflected in the
science classroom (Kessler & Quinn, 1987).
The ability to understand the use of words and expressions in a language
depends on the maturity, intelligence and experiences of the learner. It is therefore
prudent to link the concepts to be learnt to the language that is easily
comprehensible to the learner. Science learning must be made easy, simple,
interesting and adapted to learners environment so as to integrate the learner into
the science culture. In pursuance to this, Jegede (1995) proposed the Collateral
Learning Theory. This theory seeks to make use of what the learner knows from
home and helps the learner to adapt to the science culture. This situation, Jegede
(1995) referred to as Cultural Border Crossing into school science.
In the context of effective science teaching, Jegede and Aikenhead (1999)
describe the act of cultural border crossing into school science and its cognitive
explanation (collateral learning). They draw upon cultural anthropology which
regards the learning of science as the acquisition of the culture of science. To
acquire the culture of science, learners must travel from their everyday life-world
to the world of science. The everyday life includes their language and the meaning
they attribute to their experiences in their language. Teachers can assist limited
instructional language proficient learners to avoid misunderstandings between the
science culture and the home culture of learners by becoming knowledgeable of
learners linguistic, cultural and academic backgrounds. Teachers are expected to
learn basic facts about the native language of learners, their experiences and about
their culture. Learners cultural perspectives and experiences can greatly impact
59
their behaviour in the classroom, relationship with the teacher and classmates and
academic performance.
In many different cultural settings, educators have anguished over teaching
school science without assimilating pupils at the expense of already diminishing
pupils cultural identities (Jegede & Aikenhead, 1999). Probably, the most ignored
of the cultural identities is the native language. The exclusive use of second
language of children for instruction can result in non-participation and frustration
and thus can lead to children making choices against science and science related
disciplines. Pomeroy (1994) suggests that teaching science for language minority
children, the learning process be adapted to the childs native language since
learning science in a language not in ones mother tongue creates major difficulties
for achievement. Mother tongue instruction may therefore be the best alternative
medium of instruction to these children. This approach to teaching should help the
child crossover from the home environment to the school science environment.
IMPLICATION FOR EDUCATION
A good knowledge in the language of instruction enhances comprehension of new

concepts. The exclusive use of foreign language for science instruction could be
detrimental to the acquisition of scientific concepts among Indigenous
communities and can lead to high dropout rates. Indigenizing the school
curriculum may empower learners and make them active participants in the process
of transfer and acquisition of scientific knowledge and skills. The school is to forge
a closer collaboration with examination bodies to shift the focus of teaching from
satisfying examination demands to the total development of the child to appreciate
and practice science. Instructors are encouraged to use the first language of learners
to complement the use of foreign language for instruction.
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61
R.K. AKPANGLO-NARTEY, A. ASABERE-AMEYAW,

GEORGE. J. SEFA DEI AND K.D. TAALE
CHILDRENS INDIGENOUS IDEAS AND THE

LEARNING OF CONVENTIONAL SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION
Science tends to be a Euro-American/Western cultural icon of prestige, power and

progress; its subculture permeates the culture of those who engage it (Hodson,
1993; MacIvor, 1995; Ogawa, 1995). Science as a cultural product of Western
society carries with it other cultural connotations, values, ideals and norms.
School science is closely aligned with the subculture of science. The learning of
science is a process of culture-acquisition, where students get to know and practise
the ways of seeing, ways of talking and ways of doing characteristics for the
science class specific subculture (Krogh, 2005). However, meanings and
understandings derived from the other worlds affect students cognitive as well as
affective outcomes. These pose threat to children from Indigenous cultures, since
these children have been introduced to the cosmological worldview of the
Indigenous society and they are holding these as alternative frameworks.
Children from Indigenous societies therefore are usually at a disadvantage when
it comes to learning Euro-American or Western science since the knowledge
presented to them at school conflicts with the existing knowledge they carry from
the home/society (Fafunwa, 1972; Osborne & Wittrock, 1983). A learner of
science within the African socio-cultural context is seen as a person of two worlds
- the African culture and the culture of school science (Jegede, 1995; Ogunniyi,
1997). The African learner is equally confronted by the religious culture which is
also a strong force influencing learning school science (Akpan & AnamuahMensah, 1992). There is strong interrelationship between the three belief systems religious, native and scientific - in the daily life of an average African pursuing a
science course. In situations where the cultural values are deeply rooted in the
child, as it happens in the traditional African home, comprehension of EuroAmerican science could be very difficult to the child.
The socio-cultural environment of learners cannot be ignored during science
instruction due to its importance for the learning process. Concepts, explanations
and interpretations that learners derive from personal experiences in their homes
and the community constitute personal and cultural knowledge that are used as
screens to view and interpret the knowledge and experiences they encounter in the
school. In this study, we sought to find out some of the ideas Ghanaian children
had on scientific processes/concepts prior to their learning of school science and
which might impinge on their learning of conventional science.
R.K. AKPANGLO-NARTEY, ET AL.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to achieve the objective of the study, three research questions were
formulated to guide the study. These were:
Do learners from the study areas have Indigenous knowledge that they use as
alternative explanations to science concepts they learn in school?
What alternative explanations do learners from Indigenous societies have for
science concepts?
Does the Indigenous knowledge learners bring to the science class conflict with
some of the science concepts?
METHODOLOGY
Information gathered in this study was obtained from pupils in Primary 5 and 6,
JHS 1 and 2 and the basic science teachers in selected schools in southern Ghana.
Various sampling procedures were employed in selecting participants for the study.
First, cluster sampling was used in obtaining the towns in which the schools were
located. The various clusters were the circuits in which the various schools in the
district were found. Two circuits were randomly selected. Having obtained the
circuits, the towns were grouped into two major strata - big towns/cities and small
towns/villages. The small towns/villages stratum was selected for easy accessibility
to schools. These small towns/villages usually had only one or two schools and so
every school was selected as sampling school. Selection of pupil participants for
the study was done through purposive sampling. Teachers helped in selecting the
pupils who could read to understand since they had to respond to questionnaire.
A total of 55 schools were visited and ten pupils were selected from each school
resulting in a total of 550 pupils participating in the study. The sample was selected
with the help of the science teacher(s) after the objective of the study had been
explained to them. They were advised to pick a sample of ten pupils from Primary
5 and 6 and JHS 1 and 2. The JHS 3 pupils were getting ready to write their final
examinations and were excluded. Questionnaires were administered to all the 550
pupils and when they had finished responding to the questionnaire. In every school,
the participating pupils were also engaged in group discussion. Apart from the 550
pupils, 60 science teachers also responded to Teachers Questionnaire.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Pupils Indigenous Prior Conceptions

The pupils demonstrated through their responses to the questionnaire and during
the interview sessions that they had in store an enormous volume of ideas that they
used as alternative explanation of science concepts. These ideas helped pupils to
make meanings of the world as they interact with it.
The Pupils Questionnaire was constructed with items on nature and natural
phenomena and which were also found in the syllabus at the basic schools and
which the pupils observed through their daily interactions with the environment
64
CHILDRENS INDIGENOUS IDEAS
long before they started formal schooling. These included living things, natural
phenomena (e.g. rain, clouds, thunder and lightning, drought and tides) and human
activities such as fishing and farming. The pupils responses to the items were
categorized into scientific and non-scientific ideas. It is believed that the scientific
ideas were acquired in the classroom and the non-scientific ideas were acquired
through their interactions with the natural world and the society. The group
discussions with the pupils threw more light on how these Indigenous ideas helped
the pupils to explain the happenings around them.
Three fundamental knowledge systems have been identified to inform pupils as
they seek for explanations to occurrences around them. These are the Indigenous
Knowledge System in their society, the religion into which they were born and
childrens own Common Sense Knowledge (Akpan & Anamuah-Mensah, 1992).
The accumulated knowledge system of the society is dispensed to the children who
happen to be integral part of it. Indigenous knowledge systems inform pupils prior
conceptions and could be inferred from responses such as, The mother has
stronger blood which is a pupils response to the item What makes some children
look like their parents?
For those who believe in God as the creator of the universe, God is omnipotent
and omnipresent. Children from such homes attribute most occurrences to God.
Responses such as, It was during Noahs time when God destroyed the earth with
water. So God is telling us that the earth shall not be destroyed again and Rain
falls from God depict pupils prior knowledge being informed by their religious
background. Other respondents believed that Droughts come from God. One
respondent who thought there was no scientific explanation for children looking
like their parents wrote that, Because it is God who created the child to look like
his/her parent. It is God who created human being. Another respondent wrote that,
I dont believe there is a scientific explanation for children looking like their
parents, because the scientists were not there when God was creating human
beings. This corroborates Akpan and Anamuah-Mensahs (1992) assertion that
religion is a strong factor influencing the learning of science by children from
Indigenous African societies.
Teachers need to recognize the impact of religion on pupils acquisition of
science concepts. This should put them in the position to helping the Indigenous
child draw the line between religion and science so that the effect of one on the
other would be minimized. It is expected that when this is done, the levels of
scientific literacy desired in the pupils is likely to be achieved.
Thirteen percent of the pupils who responded to the questionnaire did not
consider plants as living things. Various explanations that these pupils gave
included, Because plants cannot move to anywhere, Plants stay at where they
are and grow, Plant is not a living thing because plant cannot walk and
Because they (plants) cannot think, they cannot talk about their friends. These
responses by the pupils could be seen to stem from their common sense knowledge.
Pupils had also associated rainfall with thunder and lightning so much so that they
tended to think that thunder was caused by rainfall. The children saw the similarity in
the colour of clouds and smoke and tended to think that it is smoke that goes up to
65
form clouds. To this effect, a respondent wrote, It formed like black as the
response to the item seeking their opinion on how clouds are formed. These
responses given by the pupils were indicators that pupils came to school with ideas
that they used as alternative explanations to science concepts they learn in school.
In addition to the Pupils Questionnaire, six items on the TQ were pooled to
provide answers to research question one. The Teachers Questionnaire had two
types of items Likert scale and open-ended. The responses for the Likert-type
scale items were scored. For positive statements, Strongly Agree was scored 5,
Agree 4, Not Sure 3, Disagree 2 and Strongly Disagree was scored 1. But this was
the opposite for negative statements. All items answering a particular research
question were pooled. These were entered into the SPSS and an analysis was done
using the mean. The calculated mean was then determined and used to describe the
group. For each item, the frequency (number of teachers who chose a particular
response) was multiplied by the score to determine the product. The sums of the
products were added to arrive at the total score (see Table 1). The sum of the total
scores was then determined. This figure was divided by the summation of the
number of teachers that responded to each of the items to arrive at the mean score.
Table1. Teachers Views on Children and Indigenous Knowledge
Teachers View on Children
Children come to school with preconceived ideas
Children use preconceived ideas to explain phenomena
Children use only ideas learnt in school to explain phenomena
Children hardly use Indigenous preconceived ideas in
answering questions
Childrens preconceived ideas help them explain occurrences
Childrens ideas are only learnt in the classroom
Total
Mean Score = 3.98
Total Score
264.0
262.0
226.0
186.0
n
60
60
60
60
245.0
246.0
1429
60
59
359
The mean score of 3.98 (approximately 4) corresponds to Agree on the Likert

scale. This implies that most of the teachers agreed that the learners had
Indigenous/traditional knowledge that they used as alternative explanations for
science concepts they learned in school.
Asked to give some explanations that had surfaced in their science lessons, a
teacher said that the pupils attributed the phenomenon where the sun shines while
raindrops fall to a set of twins buying from the market. Another said that the idea
that God is the creator of the heaven and the earth makes the explanation of certain
science concepts to the pupils almost impossible since they do not approach nature
objectively and are not critical in their thoughts.
Childrens Perceptions of Living Things
Children were of the view that objects are living if they move and/or grow. For
example, the sun, wind and clouds are living because they move. Fires are living
because they consume wood, move, require air, reproduce (sparks cause other
66
fires) and give off waste (smoke). Similarities can be seen to exist between
childrens conceptions in New Zealand (Osborne & Freyberg, 1985) and children
of Indigenous societies of Ghana. If the childs knowledge base is anything to
reckon with for further leaning to take place, then these ideas of children should be
thoroughly investigated and appropriate remedies put in place so that they do not
create a blockade for the scientific knowledge the child is expected to acquire at
school.
Though the majority of the respondents were of the view that plants are living
things, a few of them thought otherwise. To these few respondents, the fact that a
plant cannot move from one place to another is an indication that it is not living. A
respondent explained that plant is not a living thing because it cannot walk.
There were many others like this respondent. Many of those who said plants are
living things gave textbook explanations to prove that plants are living. One of
such statements was, Because plants have cell, because plants have shape. Others
claimed plants are living because they are a part of the natural environment. For
instance, a respondent stated that, Because they are not man-made. A child who
takes natural things to be living might have a problem classifying other things such
as rivers and rocks.
In the view of the constructivists, learners should no longer be passive recipients
of knowledge supplied by teachers (Fosnot, 1996). From this perspective, learning
as a process of acquiring new knowledge, is active and complex. It is also an active
interaction between teachers and learners and learners try to make sense of what is
taught by trying to fit these with their own experiences. An emphasis on
constructivism to promote childrens conceptual knowledge in science lessons is
by building on their prior understanding, active engagement with the subject
content and applications to real world situations (Stofflett & Stoddart, 1994).
Hence, plants and animals in an area should be actively used in the teachinglearning process if the teacher should make any headway in teaching and the
children learning meaningfully. If pupils should have reservations and be
apprehensive on the kinds of teaching-learning materials that are used in the
classroom, meaningful learning cannot take place. At best, pupils will be engaging
in rote learning to pass their examinations.
Some of the pupils who participated in the study were of the opinion that certain
plants possess magical powers with which they can cause harm. Apart from
Flagellaria sp., most of the plants that the participants claimed to have magical
powers were common plants that could readily be used as resource materials
during instructions. In fact, the baobab (Adansonia digitata) which 11 % (Table 2)
of the respondents thought possessed magical powers and could cause harm is cited
as an example of a plant that stores water in its stem and, hence, is able to survive
in arid areas. In teaching vegetative propagation of plants, Bryophyllum is a very
good teaching/learning material for the illustration of a leaf that can be used for
vegetative propagation.
67
Table 2. Some Plants the Pupils Considered having Magical Powers

Name of Plant
Ahama Bosom
Baobab
Bryophyllum
Neem tree
Ceiba
Opuntia
Sisal plant
Other plants
No plant
Total
Percent
11.4
10.7
4.2
2.9
6.2
1.4
1.1
3.8
58.3
100.0
n
63
59
23
16
34
8
6
20
321
550
There were certain animals that pupils thought had magical powers. Some of
these animals were the owl (Tyto alba), chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon),
vulture (Neophron percnopterus), goat (Capra hircus), crocodile (Crocodilus
niloticus), domestic cat (Felis catus) and the python (Python regius). Few of the
animals such as the owl, chameleon, python, cat and vulture were mentioned by the
research participants in all the districts the study covered, but others such as the
crocodile and dwarf were district specific.
Table 3. Some Animals Pupils Considered to have Magical Powers
Name of Animal
Vulture
Cat
Chameleon
Crocodile
Dwarf
Goat
Owl
Pig
Python
Other animals
No animal
Total
Percent
6.0
4.5
12.4
3.6
1.1
6.0
30.4
2.4
3.2
9.5
20.9
100.0
n
33
25
68
20
6
33
167
13
18
52
115
550
Seventy-nine percent (n=435) of the pupils (Table 3) thought some animals had
magical powers and could cause harm. More than 30% of the pupils who
participated in the study regarded the owl as having magical powers to harm
humans. This view was shared by pupils throughout the study areas. This bird has
been nick-named by the various tribes to depict the mystery and fear surrounding it.
Apart from its regular name ptu (ptu) and patu, the owl is also called bonsam
anoma (evil bird) and ay loofl (witch bird) in Akan and Ga respectively. Adas
call it aze looebi (witch bird) just as it has been nick-named in Ga. In Larteh, it is
called bonsam abobi (evil bird) aside its correct name. It is the belief of the pupils
that witches turn into owls at night to engage in destructive nocturnal activities.
68
Witches are also believed to turn into vultures and sometimes less harmful
domestic animals such as cats and goats.
The crocodile and the python are totems of the Dangmebiawe and Sega clans
respectively of Ada and are seen to possess the spirit of the ancestors of these clans.
These animals are revered by all. Most children consider them as having magical
powers. Quizzed on when the animals with magical powers harm people, a
respondent simply wrote, The crocodile doesnt like noise.
The chameleon is another animal that is believed to have magical powers. It was
revealed during a group discussion that when a pregnant woman looks at a
chameleon, she would give birth to a baby that would behave like the chameleon.
Apart from the domestic cat and goat, most of the animals children gave as having
magical powers are not so much classroom animals. Nevertheless, they may have
influence on science instruction because they are likely to influence childrens
worldview.
Childrens Misconceptions on Certain Concepts in Science
Childrens understandings of some concepts and phenomena were sought for. Their
perceptions on these concepts and phenomena were categorized as scientific and
non-scientific and are presented in Table 4.
Children have been made to understand that they tend to look like the parent
with a stronger or heavier or better blood. The children were, therefore, of the
opinion that blood is what makes a child look like any one of the parents. These
findings of the sampled childrens prior conceptions on hereditary were not
different from those of Aladejana and Odejobi (2006). The misconceptions that
blood and not chromosome is responsible for the transfer of genetic information is
one that transcends cultural and national borders.
Most of the respondents who did not have scientific explanation for the cause of
thunder and lightning were of the opinion that thunder is caused by rainfall. Few of
the pupils were of the opinion that people are able to cause thunder to strike and
that there have been several deaths attributed to thunder and not lightning.
Eighty five percent of respondents (n=547) thought the eclipse of the sun is as a
result of the sun and the moon fighting rather than the moon coming in between the
earth and the sun and thereby preventing the suns rays from reaching the earth. This
shows a clear case of Indigenous worldview and science subculture being at odds.
Illustrating what collateral learning is with the rainbow, Aikenhead and Huntley
(1997) claimed that in some Indigenous African cultures, a rainbow signifies a
python crossing a river or the death of an important chief. The African is, thus,
more interested in what the rainbow signifies than what causes it. The same can be
said of the respondents for this study. Out of the 92.2% (Table 4) of the
respondents who gave non-scientific responses to the cause of the rainbow in this
study, as many as 52% (n=541) of them gave responses which only indicate what
the rainbow signifies. When asked to give the cause of the tide, most of the pupils
rather gave what it signifies. It, therefore, behoves teachers of science in the basic
69
schools to help pupils to be critical thinkers as they discuss the causes of various
phenomena and not merely what they signify.
Table 4. Childrens Understanding of Certain Science Concepts
Concepts
Number
of Respondents (n)
What makes children look like their parents?
546
Causes of thunder and lightning
481
Causes of rainbow
541
What happens when there is an eclipse of the
547
sun?
How are clouds formed?
541
What makes rain fall?
543
Non-Scientific
Response (%)
86.8
94.8
92.2
85.3
75.6
53.0
Water cycle is taught at the basic schools. The various stages of evaporation,
condensation and precipitation are all discussed in the syllabus. It is interesting to
note that some pupils in JSS 2 did not know what brings about cloud formation. As
many as 76% of the respondents (n=541) gave a non-scientific response as to what
forms clouds. Out of this, 45% (n=243) were of the opinion that clouds are formed
from smoke. There were such responses as, Cloud is formed by fumes from
exhaust pipes of vehicles and Smoke and vapour from cooking goes up to form
clouds. Most of the pupils had misconceptions about rainfall. Fifty-three percent
(n=543) of the respondents gave non-scientific responses to what causes rainfall.
There were such responses as, smoke from cooking, smoke from burning bush,
when the world is dark, rainbow and rain falls from heaven.
Prior Conceptions or Misconceptions
Research question three was to find out whether the Indigenous knowledge pupils
have do conflict with the science concepts teachers teach. The results showed that
the teachers who participated in the study were of the view that the Indigenous
knowledge learners bring to the science class conflicts with science concepts taught
in the classroom.
Teachers responses were informed by the fact that sometimes during science
instruction, the ideas pupils have acquired from the society block their
understanding and hence they are not able to find any meaning out of the concepts
the teachers present. Teachers mentioned certain traditional beliefs and taboos that
seemed to undermine these science concepts. One of such beliefs is the fact that
pregnant women should not take eggs. Another is that eggs should not be fed to
infants. The explanation was that the babies involved in the two scenarios grow up
to become thieves. This is in conflict with lessons in nutrition in which egg is
portrayed as being rich in protein and hence a very good source of protein for a
developing and growing infant. A similar idea in the Caribbean has resulted in
malnutrition among children in this area (George & Glasgow, 1989). Another
conflicting concept teachers pointed out was the monthly menstrual flow of ladies.
70
This act of nature is shrouded in some secrecy and comes with certain restrictions.
A lady, during this period, is restricted from certain areas considered sacred and
not allowed to touch certain items such as buckets and bowls even at home. This
makes it extremely difficult to teach teenage girls the health implications and
precautions they need to take during this period.
Another area of conflict teachers were concerned with is the belief that the
outbreak of some epidemics is a punishment from the gods and or the ancestral spirits
for an offence against them. This does not encourage scientific approach to solving
problems. Also of concern to the teachers was the fact that the pupils found it
difficult to accept the notion that the earth is spherical and not as flat as they see it.
The fact that some plants and animals are possessed with supernatural forces
was another concern to some teachers as an area of conflict between the childrens
prior knowledge and science. Children sometimes find it difficult to accept that
plants are living and they go through the various activities that other living things
(animals) go through. Children do not easily accept the fact that plants can breathe
and feed. In the lower classes (Primary 4 and 5), it is almost impossible to refer to
humans as animals.
Children have been made to accept that shooting stars seen in the night sky
which science explains as meteorites are witches flying to engage in nocturnal
activities. Children also carry the notion that anytime somebody dies, one of the
stars disappears and anytime one of the stars disappears, somebody is dead.
The foregoing discussions suggest that, childrens ideas before formal science
instructions sometimes act as a blockade to their comprehension of science
concepts they learn at school. Research into childrens nave interpretations of the
world shed some insights and provided guidance for prospective and practicing
teachers. When teachers know what their students think, they can implement
instructional activities to challenge existing student ideas to address their
misconceptions to facilitate the teaching and learning of science.
CONCLUSION
Teachers should take cognizance of the fact that pupils Relevant Previous
Knowledge which they tap into to start a new topic does not only compose of the
science concepts that have been taught in the previous week(s) or level(s) but
include the diverse knowledge the pupils learn from the society before the start of
formal schooling. Teachers are therefore encouraged to use innovative ways
(prompting questions and concept maps) to elicit for pupils prior conceptions
during instructions. As much as possible, teachers are to link the science concepts
they teach at school to the day-to-day activities pupils engaged in at home so as to
make science relevant to them.
71
REFERENCES
Aikenhead, G. S., & Huntley, B. (1997). Science and culture nexus: A research report. Regina,
SK, Canada: Saskatchewan Education.
Aikenhead, G. S., & Jegede, O. J. (1999). Cross-cultural science education: A cognitive explanation of a
cultural phenomenon. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36, 269287.
Akpan, O. E., & Anamuah-Mensah, J. (1992). The tricontextual milieu to science concept learning of an
African child: Need for teaching model. Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 1, 324.
Aladejana, F., & Odejobi, C. (2006). Online: Actualizing the effective learning of science in a
globalized world: The place of the Nigerian indigenous science. Retreive from http://www.
leadership.fau.edu/icscei2006/papers/Aladejana and Odejobi.doc.
Fafunwa, A. B. (1972). Professionalization of teaching. In Adaralegbe, A. A. (Ed.), Philosophy for
Nigerian education (pp. 8895). Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books.
Fosnot, C. T. (1996). Constructivist: A psychological theory of learning. In C. T. Fosnot (Ed.),
Constructivism: Theory, perspective and practice (pp. 813). New York: Teacher College Press.
George, J., & Glasgow, J. (1989). Some cultural implications of teaching towards common syllabi in
science: A case study from the Caribbean. School Science Review, 71(254), 115123.
Jegede, O. J. (1995). Collateral learning and the eco-cultural paradigm in science and mathematics
Krogh, L. B. (2005). Studying students attitudes towards science from a cultural perspective but with a
quantitative methodology: Border crossing into the physics classroom. International Journal of
MacIvor, M. (1995). Redefining science education for Aboriginal students. In M. Battiste & J. Barman
(Eds.), First Nations education in Canada: The circle unfolds (pp. 7398). Vancouver, Canada:
University of British Columbia Press.
Ogawa, M. (1995). Science education in a multi-science perspective. Science Education, 79, 583593.
Ogunniyi, M. B. (1997). Science education in a multi-cultural South Africa. In M. Ogawa (Ed.), Effects
of traditional cosmology on science education. (Report of an International Scientific Research
Programme (Joint Research), Funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research in 1996) (pp. 84
95). Mito, Ibaraki, Japan: Ibaraki University
Osborne, R., & Freyberg, P. (1985). Learning in science: The implications of childrens science.
Birkenhead, Auckland: Heinemann.
Osborne, R. J., & Wittrock, M. C. (1983). Learning science: A generative process. Science Education,
67(4), 489504.
Stofflett, R. T., & Stoddart, T. (1994). The ability to understand and use conceptual change pedagogy as
a function of prior content learning experience. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31, 3151.
72
JOHN K. EMINAH, KOJO TAALE AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
SCIENCE STUDENT TEACHERS ATTITUDE

TOWARDS IMPROVISATION
INTRODUCTION
The result of various researches and practical experience teach that at the preuniversity level, science teaching should not involve only theoretical principles and
verbal activities. Since majority of learners at this level are not cognitively mature,
science teaching and learning should involve a judicious blend of practical
activities and some theory (if necessary). To be beneficial to the learners, preuniversity science should be meaningful and also focused on phenomena in the
environment in order to promote understanding of nature.
Meaningful activities in science can, however, be organized only when the
appropriate instructional materials are available. As was noted by Bello and
Olowonefa (2004), instructional materials widen the scope and understanding of
learners beyond the basic informational needs of the course or lesson.
Generally, it is known that among other benefits, instructional materials
facilitate conceptual thinking and make learning more permanent. They also offer
various experiences which stimulate self-activity on the part of learners.
As important as instructional materials are for the teaching and learning of preuniversity science, the reality of the situation is that in most schools instructional
materials are either in short supply or are not available (Dawai, 2009; Sadauki,
2009). In such cases, science teachers are expected to take up the challenge by
improvising materials for their lessons. Improvisation is one of the recognized and
authentic ways of minimizing the absence of instructional materials. It is also an
inexpensive method of widening the scope of scientific inquiry at the classroom
level. The persistent shortage of instructional materials in pre-university
institutions is a matter of concern and requires redress.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The low supply of instructional materials in African schools has been a topic of
concern for some time now. A few years ago, Obanya (2004) lamented the poor
state of the supply of curriculum and educational materials in Africa in general. He
opined that that was one of the major challenges for curriculum and instruction for
Africa in the twentyfirst century. In the face of the current global economic crisis
and its attendant effects on educational provisions in schools, teachers can alleviate
the inadequate supply of instructional materials through improvisation (Eminah,
2009).
On their part, Magni, Provera and Proserpio (2010) have noted that
improvisation is rapidly becoming an important issue for practitioners (teachers)
and scholars (researchers). They stated that this is because of the need for
institutions and practitioners that operate under unstable economic environments to
learn to quickly adapt and respond to such instability. They also noted the need for
multi-level studies on improvisation.
Findings reported by Freedman (1997) indicate that scientific attitude has
a predominantly cognitive orientation whereas attitude towards science is
predominantly affective. Hence, determining the attitudes of science student
teachers towards improvisation will reveal their affective orientations towards
improvisation and so facilitate envisaged interventions. An additional impetus for
this study was provided by Trowbridge, Bybee and Powells (2004) contention that
positive affective orientations are critical ingredients of students intrinsic
motivation for learning.
THE PROBLEM
Using the results of several empirical researches, Nwabueze Ezeanya (1998)

firmly established that the shortage or outright lack of instructional materials in
Nigerian schools still persists. It stands to reason that previous interventions
designed to combat the problem had not yielded the desired results. The world
over, teachers have been recognized as one of the solutions to educational
problems. For this reason, focusing on student teachers at the point of their training
is one credible way of augmenting the pool of data required to address the issue of
the lack of improvised materials in the schools. This study is therefore designed to
determine the attitudes of selected student teachers (in the education department of
a tertiary institution) towards improvisation.
The main research question addressed in the study was as follows:
What are the attitudes of students towards improvisation?
The following hypotheses were also formulated for the study:
There is no significant difference between the attitudes of male and female
students towards improvisation.
There is no significant difference between the attitudes of students who were
teachers and their counterparts who were not towards improvisation.
There is no significant difference between the attitudes of experienced and
inexperienced teachers towards improvisation.
There is no significant difference between the attitudes of level 200 and level
300 students towards improvisation.
There is no significant difference between the number of students who have
positive attitudes and those who have negative attitudes towards improvisation.
74
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Teachers:
Non-Teachers:
Experienced Teachers:
Inexperienced Teachers:
These are student teachers who were trained

teachers before being admitted to the
university.
These are student teachers who had not
previously been trained to teach
These are teachers who had taught for over six
years.
These are teachers who had taught for six years
or less
RESEARCH PROCEDURE
The research subjects comprised selected level 300 and level 200 students who
were pursuing various Bachelor of Science Education programmes in the
Department of Education in Katsina State University.
The main instrument was a questionnaire which was divided into two parts
Part A collected personal data on the research subjects. Part B consisted of sixteen
5 Point Likert type attitude items on improvisation. The intensity of the
responses and scores for positive items were as follows: Strongly agree 5; Agree
4; Not sure 3; Disagree 2; Strongly disagree 1. Negative items bearing these
responses were scored in the reverse order. Using the test retest procedure, a
reliability index of 0.885 was calculated for the attitude items when the data was
analysed using Pearsons Product Moment Correlation Formula. One hundred level
200 students and 50 level 300 students were selected and asked to complete the
questionnaire. One hundred and twenty-nine usable questionnaires were later
retrieved from 30 level 300 students and 99 level 200 students.
Portions of the data were analysed and used to answer the research question.
The null hypotheses were tested using four parametric tests and a non-parametric
test.
RESULTS
The main research question dealt with the attitudes of the students towards
improvisation. To answer this research question, the mean attitude score of all the
students as well as those of the groups of students mentioned in the null hypotheses
were calculated. On the whole, it was found that the students had a positive attitude
towards improvisation. The results are shown in Table 1.
It was also found that 12 students had negative attitudes toward improvisation
while four students had a neutral attitude. Of the 12 students who had negative
attitudes, 10 (83%) of them had previously not been trained as teachers.
75
Table 1. Attitudes Towards Improvisation

Groups
All Students
Teachers
Non-Teachers
Experienced Teachers
Inexperienced Teachers
Level 200 Students
Level 300 Students
Females
Males
Mean Attitude Scores

3.585
3.7278
3.5122
3.6046
3.7890
3.502
3.859
3.445
3.634
Standard Deviation
0.4718
0.5028
0.4498
0.6223
0.4376
0.4828
0.3611
0.4561
0.4787
Hypotheses Testing
The first hypothesis was tested using the ztest for 2-sample cases. It was found
that the male students had a higher positive attitude than their female counterparts.
The difference in attitudes was found to be statistically significant. The results are
shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Z test Analysis of the Attitude Scores of Male and Female Students
Groups
Males
Number of
Students (IV)
96
Females
33
z- crit = 1.96 P< 0.05; zobs = 2.036
Attitude Score (AS)

3. 634
Standard
Deviation (SD)
4. 4787
3.445
Z Value
2.036*
0.4561
*Significant
From Table 2, the observed z value is greater than the critical z value. The
null hypothesis was thus rejected.
The data used to test the second hypothesis are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3. Ztest Analysis of Attitude Scores of the Teachers and Non-Teachers
Groups
N
Teachers
47
Non-teachers
82
Z crit = 1.96; p<0.05 ; z-obs=2.456
AS
3.7278
3.512
S.D
0.5028
0.4498
Z VALUE
2.456*
* Significant
Since the observed zvalue was greater than the critical zvalue, the null
hypothesis was rejected. It was concluded that the difference in attitudes between
the teachers and non-teachers is statistically significant.
The third hypothesis was tested using the data in Table 4.
76
Table 4. Ztest Analysis of the Attitude Scores of the Experienced and

Groups
Experienced Teachers
z crit = 1.96; P<0.05 ; z-obs= 1.0632
N
16
31
AS
3.604
3.789
S.D
Z VALUE
0.6223
1.0632**
0.4376
** Not significant
The null hypothesis was upheld because the observed zvalue was less than the
critical z value. Hence although the inexperienced teachers had a higher positive
attitude than their experienced counterparts, the difference was not statistically
significant.
The data that were used to test the fourth hypothesis are summarized in Table 5.
Table 5. Z-test Analysis of the Attitude Scores of the Levels 300 and 200 Students
Groups
Level 300 Students
Level 200 students
Z crit = 1.96 p<0.05 ; z-obs = 4.356.
N
30
99
AS
3.859
3.512
S.D
Z VALUE
0.3611
4.356*
0.4828
*Significant
The data showed that the level 300 students had a higher positive attitude
towards improvisation. The difference in attitudes was found to be statistically
significant leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis.
Table 6 contains the data that were used to test the fifth hypothesis. Since the
data used were nominal, chi-square test was used for this hypothesis.
Table 6. Chi-Square Analysis of the Students Attitudes Towards Improvisation
CATEGORY
Positive Attitude
Negative Attitude
2 crit 3.84, df = 1; p<0.05
N
113
12
%
88%
9%
*Significant
2 VALUE
81.608*
The null hypothesis was rejected because the observed chi-square value was
greater than the critical chi-square value. It was concluded that the difference in the
number of students with positive attitudes and those with negative attitudes
towards improvisation is statistically significant.
DISCUSSION
The results clearly showed that on the whole, the students had a positive attitude
towards improvisation. This is encouraging in that it is an indication that given the
right training and motivation these student teachers will be favourably disposed
towards improvisation when they enter active service.
The finding that the teachers had a higher positive attitude towards improvisation
than the non-teachers is not surprising. Being professionals before gaining entry
into the University, the teachers must have had first-hand experience of the
77
inadequate supply of teaching and learning materials for science lessons. This past
experience, coupled with their professional training might have impacted positively
on the teachers as they responded to the attitude items on improvisation.
The fact that the difference between the attitudes of the teachers and nonteachers was statistically significant implies that extra efforts need to be exerted to
ensure that the non-teachers adopt the right disposition towards improvisation
before passing out of the university. It was also found that the female students had
a lower positive attitude than the male students towards improvisation. Similar
findings have been reported by Duhoh (2004). Informal talks with random
selections of the research subjects indicated that pre-university science teachers in
Katsina State were dissatisfied with the level of educational provisions and
financial support for improvisation in the schools. It thus appears that the male
students were more willing to face the challenges associated with the improvisation
of materials under the adverse conditions existing in the schools. Hence, they had
more positive attitude towards improvisation than their female colleagues.
One surprising discovery was the fact that the inexperienced teachers had a
higher positive attitude than the experienced teachers towards improvisation. As
was observed by Powell (1970), the professionalism and dedication of teachers,
particularly in Africa, wane with time due to their unattractive working conditions
and auxiliary benefits. This observation is consistent with findings reported by
Mensah and Antwi-Danso (2010) with respect to teachers job satisfaction.
The study also found that the level 300 students had a significantly higher
positive attitude than the level 200 students. This might be due to the impact of the
greater number of methods courses taken by the former in the department of
education. The finding that 12 students had negative attitude towards improvisation
is revealing. It shows that in spite of their aspiration to be teachers, not all the
students possess the dispositions expected of professional teachers.
CONCLUSION
Although the study found that the research subjects had an overall positive attitude
towards improvisation, the finding that 12 of them had negative attitudes gives
cause for concern. It is possible that such students are not really committed to the
teaching profession but want to use it as a stepping stone. Even if such students
stay in the profession, their dispositions may not augur well for a subject as
important as science at the pre-university level. As Tufuor (1989) noted, if the
negative attitudes of science teachers are not addressed, they may transfer them to
the students or pupils.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations are based on the foregoing findings and

discussion.
78
Intakes into departments of education in the various teacher training institutions

should be given professional help to enable them acquire the dispositions
expected of professional teachers.
Education authorities should devise means of determining the suitability and
willingness of student teachers to perform all the functions associated with the
teaching profession on completion of their programmes.
The Federal and State Governments should improve the working conditions of
teachers to motivate them to work harder.
Other researchers should take up the challenge of determining the training needs
of serving and pre-service science teachers, particularly with respect to the
improvisation of teaching and learning materials.
REFERENCES
Bello A. A., & Olowonefa, G. (2004). The role of instructional materials in the teaching-learning
process. Nigerian Journal of Curriculum Studies, 11(2), 252255.
Dawai, H. M. (2009). Factors affecting science teaching in some selected secondary schools in Katsina
Metropolis. Unpublished B.Ed. Project, Umaru Musa YarAdua University, Katsina.
Duhoh M. A. (2004). The status of science teaching and learning in selected schools in Akatsi.
Unpublished B.Ed. project, University of Education, Winneba.
Eminah, J. K. (2009) Rationale and approaches for improvisation in science. UMYU Journal of
Freedman, M. P. (1997). Relationship among laboratory instruction, attitude toward science and
achievement in science knowledge Journal of Research in Science Teaching,34(4), 343357.
Magni, M., Provera, B., & Proserpio, L. (2010). Individual attitude toward improvisation in information
systems. A multi-level perspective. Retreived from http://www.//:2.lse.ac.uk/asp/aspects.
Mensah, D. K. D., & Antwi-Danso, S. (2010). Improving teacher job satisfaction, key issues to consider
among primary school teachers in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis of Ghana. African Journal of
Interdisciplinary Studies, 3, 18.
Nwabueze-Ezeanya, E. (1998). The status of instructional materials in schools. Nigerian Journal of
Curriculum Studies (Special Edition), 6773.
Obanya, P. (2004). The dilemma of education in Africa. Ibadan: Heineman Educational Books.
Powell T. J. (1970). The adaptability of Ghanaian student teachers. Teacher Education in New
Countries, 11(1), 2226.
Sadauki, A. (2009). Factors affecting the effective teaching and learning of physics in selected
secondary schools in Katsina Local Government Area. Unpublished B.Ed. project, Umaru Musa
Yar Adua University, Katsina.
Trowbridge L. W., Bybee, R.W., & Powell, J. C. (2004) Teaching secondary school science: Strategies
for developing scientific literacy (8th ed.). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education.
Tufuor J. K. (1989). The implementation of the J.S.S Science programme in Cape Coast District: A case
study. Journal of Ghana Association of Science Teachers (Special Edition), 3846.
79
DORIAN A. BARROW
BELIEFS ABOUT THE NATURE OF SCIENCE HELD

BY AFRICAN TEACHERS IN THE CARIBBEAN
DIASPORA
INTRODUCTION
Science education research in the Anglophone Caribbean has been developing on

several fronts at a steady space over the past forty years. These include research in
such areas as: the role and purposes of science education, culture and cognitive
development, science curriculum development, science teacher education, the
impact of science on social issues and concerns, scientific literacy and the
relationships between Caribbean beliefs and conventional science i (Sweeney,
2003). No research over this period, however, has focused on teachers views of
the nature of science or has explored cross-cultural studies of teacher beliefs
comparing Caribbean teachers belief about the nature of science to those of
teachers in other regions of the world such as Africa, Asia or Australia. As Aldrin
Sweeney (2003) pointed out a few years ago, what appears to be absent or at
least, not very well developed in Caribbean science education research efforts,
are cross-cultural studies involving not only Caribbean islands, but other developed
and developing countries (p. 5). He goes on to make a case for the need of a body
of work providing an empirical basis upon which useful cross-cultural
comparative analyses and extrapolations may be made.
My interest in beliefs about the nature of science held by teachers in the
Caribbean diaspora had its genesis a few years before Sweeneys (2003) call for
cross-cultural studies. It was Jegedes (1995) work on collateral learning in which
he called on African policy makers to refocus teacher education programmes to
better reflect the Indigenous cultures imperative that first attracted me to this field
of research. At that time, I was a university administrator at the University College
of Belize with direct responsibility for the teacher education programme of the
university and wanted to reform the teacher education programme so that it would
be more responsive to the Indigenous cultures that made up the Belizean societyii.
On moving to the University of the West Indies a decade later (2005), it was not
difficult to identify Tobago, one of the two islands making up the Republic of
Trinidad and Tobago, with an overwhelming majority of peoples of African
descent an ideal site to extend this line of research.
It was therefore this call for the refocusing of teacher education programmes to
ensure that their philosophical foundations are not only located but also guided by
the Indigenous cultures imperatives, first made by Jegede (1995) and subsequently
Aikenhead and Huntley (1999) and by Atwater and Crocket (2003), that brought
DORIAN A. BARROW
me to this research project on beliefs about the nature of science and science
education of African teachers in the Caribbean diaspora. This chapter is therefore
written from the perspective of someone who has identified himself as a member of
the African science educators in the Caribbean diaspora for almost two decades,
suggesting that I bring an optics [that] is a politics of positioning (Haraway 1996,
p. 257). It was therefore considered personally compelling for me to carry out this
cross-cultural analysis of the NOS with another Indigenous group of science
teachers teachers in Alaska with whom the link with the African diaspora in the
Caribbean was minimal.
Furthermore, the fact that the Alaskan study was carried out by prominent native
Alaskan science educator Deborah Pomeroy (1993), who has struggled to maintain
the Indigenous voice on an international level was difficult to resist, even though
fully recognizing that the two countries politics and histories are very different.
Background
Despite the fact that the Anglophone Caribbean covers a huge space, its actual land
mass is relatively small. The seventeen territories that comprise the union
(CARICOM) were all former British colonies that were populated initially by
enslaved peoples of African descent and subsequently by Indian indentured
labourers who were brought to the Caribbean for the sole purpose of meeting the
labour demands of the European plantation agriculture. The history of Tobago is
only slightly different in this regard. Though Tobago was discovered by
Columbus in 1498 like most of the other Caribbean territories, the international
rivalry for its control did not commence until 1626 when the Dutch settled the
north-western end of the island. This rivalry continued until 1814, when Britain
gained final control and absolute possession of it by the Treaty of Paris (Luke,
2007).
Tobago and Trinidad were amalgamated into a single British colony in 1898,
when Tobago was made a a Ward of Trinidad (Brereton 1997). British and
French colonization of Tobago was accompanied by plantation agriculture and the
introduction of African slavery. Thereafter Tobagos society comprised a tiny
minority of white settlers and an overwhelming majority of enslaves peoples of
African decent. Luke (2007) states [T]he ethnic mix has continued to the present
time and it formed the foundation on which Tobagonian identity was built (p. 3).
Unlike Trinidad for example, where the ethnic mix is approximately 35% Afro and
40% Indo-Trinidadian, Tobago was ideal to draw a sample of African science
teachers in the Caribbean diaspora. Its unique ethnic mix therefore contributed
significantly to the focus of this study.
Sweeney (2003) has made his plea for more science education research in spite
of the fact that science education research in the Caribbean has been occurring at a
steady space over the past 40 years. This is, in part, because no current research
offers insights into how Caribbean teacher beliefs might be similar to, or different
from, their teaching counterparts in other regions of world such as Africa, North
America, Europe or Asia. Current related research largely focuses on students
82
BELIEFS ABOUT THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
Indigenous knowledge and the school science curriculum. For example, George
and Glasgow (1999), George (1999, 2001) and Herbert (2008) have examined the
dynamics of Indigenous knowledge (IK) held by Caribbean students of mostly
African decent and the Modern Western Science (MWS) taught as school science
in schools in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica in an attempt to counter arguments
put forward by universalists science educators such as Loving and de Montellano
(2003), to account for the limited interest students show towards school science
(MWS) and their general low level of performance in science exams at the
secondary school level.
More specifically, George (1999), in her work in Trinidad and Tobago identified
several ways in which school knowledge (MWS) and IK are both similar and
different and presented a fourfold categorization of the relationship between the
two knowledge systems. George (1999) argued that though the two knowledge
systems are different they are linked in her categories one (where conventional
science can explain Indigenous practice) and three (where there is a conventional
science link with traditional knowledge, but the principles may be different).
Because of this critical link, she argues, there is justification for both WMS and IK
to be included in the schools science curricula, a suggestion which policy makers
in the region have persistently ignored.
Elsewhere, researchers have argued that the inclusion of culturally relevant
situations in science curricula can help to raise Indigenous students achievement
(McKinley, 2007). Jegede (1995) for example, in his proposal on how rural African
students should approach the learning of science, has warned that the cultural
clash and difficulties associated with border crossing and collateral learning create
an educational imperative that science education research must understand the
cultural basis to learning within Indigenous societies; otherwise the education of
these communities will never be effective (McKinley, 2007, p. 217). The solution
Jegede (1995) asserts involves restructuring science education and refocusing
teacher education programmes to ensure that their philosophical foundations are
located and guided by the Indigenous cultures imperatives. It is the line of
reasoning that this research project is attempting to further explore in the
Caribbean context.
Rationale and Conceptual Background
Though the goals of this research project are ultimately similar to those being
proposed by Jegede (1995), the conceptual framework adopted to achieve these
ends is different. Dominating the field currently are approaches derived from
anthropology such as Jegedes collateral learning and Georges IK categories
(McKinley, 2007). The anthropological approach is a seductive one because it
focuses on culture and cultural practices of different groups and treats science as a
cultural activity (Hammond & Brandt, 2004). This approach, however, has
limitations for studying Indigenous teachers of science since it has no way to deal
with issues of power and economic privilege (McKinley, 2007, p.220).
Furthermore, such a framework was not seen as being helpful in finding an answer
83
DORIAN A. BARROW
to the question what views of the nature of science should Indigenous science
teachers have to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom? This latter question
came directly from parents in the Tobago community who were concerned about
the underperformance of their children in science.
Instead, a mixed epistemological framework that combines both historical
positivist and social constructionist notions is adopted in this study. Constructivism
assumes that knowledge, including Indigenous knowledge, are mental constructs
created by agents as they interact with their environment. For example, it holds that
a metaphor is a way of thinking, an image that once captured in the mind can guide
an action to its completion, that is, it is a way of coming to know something (Elliott,
2009). Hence, understanding the metaphors teachers use offers a glimpse of the
ideas of the person (Tobin & Tippins, 1996).
Though the framework used in this research project is in part positivistic, the
teachers as historical agents are not constituted as deficit. For example, it is
recognized that science teachers in Tobago are in a constant struggle against a
Trinidadian hegemony to maintain first and foremost their Tobago identity. This
tension that began in 1898 when the two colonies were amalgamated and Tobago
became a Ward of Trinidad remains as intense today as it was over a century ago
and continues to influence their worldviews, beliefs, attitudes and images of what it
means to be Indigenous in Tobago while teaching science to Tobagos children of
the same Indigenous stock (Luke, 2007).
In summary, the problem for which a solution is sought through this study is
that Indigenous science teachers of Tobago have only been provided with very
limited opportunities to reflect on the nature of their science disciplines. They are
not sufficiently conscious of how their subconscious views of the nature of science
impacts on their beliefs about science education and on how they present Western
Modern Science (WMS) to Indigenous students of Tobago in science classrooms in
secondary schools throughout the island.
Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this mixed-method study is therefore to survey the views of the
nature of science and science education of a purposive sample of science teachers
from Tobago using the NOS questionnaire developed by Deborah Pomeroy (1993)
and to compare their views to those of a sample of science teachers from Alaska.
The qualitative part of the study will describe the teaching metaphor the Tobago
teachers adopt when teaching science at several secondary school sites in Tobago.
At this point in the research, nature of science refers to the values and beliefs
inherent in scientific knowledge and its development (Lederman & Ziedler, 1987,
p. 721); and nature of science education refers to values and beliefs teachers hold
about the teaching and learning of science (Gallagher, 1991).
The two research questions that guided this study are:
To what extent are the views of the nature of science and the nature of science
education of science teachers Indigenous to Tobago similar to those of science
teachers in Alaska?
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What are some of the metaphors teachers of Tobago use to describe their
classroom science teaching?
Significance, Assumptions, Limitations and Delimitations
This is a beginning effort in cross-cultural studies involving Caribbean science
teachers. It attempts to begin the process of linking science teachers Indigenous to
the Anglophone Caribbean directly with their counterparts in other regions of the
world and to share their views of nature of science and science education with
teachers living and working in other regions of the world. The hope is that this
sharing will benefit science teachers everywhere.
An even more significant set of purposes for carrying out this study are the
potential novel learning opportunities it offers science teacher educators working in
the context of small island states like the Anglophone Caribbean, for crosscultural comparative analyses (Sweeney, 2003), given that many of us were
trained in and did some, if not all, our teacher education research projects in the
context of larger, more developed nation-states (Fraser-Abder, 1988).
It is important to note that there were several limitations to this inquiry. One was
that the two surveys used to collect data for analysis, were carried out at two
different points in time and for two different sets of purposes. The survey of the
Alaskan science teachers carried out by Deborah Pomeroy (1993) was part of a
study to determine if there were differences in beliefs about nature of science and
science education among elementary, secondary and university science teachers in
that State. Hence, only a part of the rich quantitative data generated, that is, those
responses by high school science teachers, was used in the analysis in this paper.
Additionally, the size of the Tobago sample was smaller than the Alaskan sample,
which makes the comparative analysis more descriptive and exploratory, since
such a significant difference in sample size pose some threats to the validity of the
comparison in the formal quantitative research paradigm. These threats however
were minimized by using non-parametric techniques in cases where the parametric
assumptions could not be confirmed.
Secondly, in the Tobago study there was no deliberate focus on the schools
planned science curricula. Furthermore, there was limited focus on the Tobago
schools governance structures. The Tobago study was therefore severely delimiting
in these respects. Finally, though there was not a deliberate focus on students as the
fourth common place of schooling (Schwab, 1964) in either of the two studies, the
interest in seeing how the teachers in the Tobago sample enacted their teaching
metaphors in the science classroom, did provide opportunities to gain some
insights into how students responded to the enactment of the various teaching
metaphors. This allowed for some observations to be made on the received science
curriculum (Berry, Poonwassie & Berry 1999) in Tobago. The Tobago study was,
therefore, limited to focusing, in varying degrees, on two (students and teachers) of
Schwabs (1964) four common places of schooling, while the Pomeroy (1993)
study centred on one, the science teachers only.
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DORIAN A. BARROW
Definition of Terms
Three terms used in this study require operationalizing. These are:
Traditional views of science: This is a pre-Kuhnian view of the nature of science
in which many myths about what science is and how it works are embedded. The
more traditional your view is the more of these myths you consider to be true.
Traditional views of science education: This is a statement about the extent to
which you still value and believe in theories of teaching and learning that are
currently believed to be or have been proven to be false. For example, if you
believe that students can only learn science in a formal classroom setting, this
would be considered a traditional view of science education.
Non-traditional views of science: This is a post-Kuhnian view of science in
which you consider yourself an agent in the creation of scientific knowledge and so
consider scientific knowledge a cultural artefact. You value both the process and
the product of science.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Background
As no prior teacher training is necessary to be appointed as secondary school
teacher, science teachers in both Trinidad and Tobago enter the secondary schools
science classrooms, invariably, after three years of exposure to university science
teaching. This exposure is to science teaching by people who are experts in a
modern western science discipline/s, who are steep in discipline-related pure
scientific research and who generally have little or no formal exposure to
secondary school science pedagogy (Barrow, 1993; Gallagher, 1991). Furthermore,
these university scientists are also almost always active members of a larger MWS
scientific research community that is networked on a global scale (Barrow, 1993).
The professional development of secondary school science teachers in T&T is
therefore done through in-service teacher training programmes. UWIs postgraduate
diploma in science education is one such in-service treaining programme.
The postgraduate diploma programme is a 30-credit-hour programme that is
delivered over an 11-month time period July to May each year (UWI St.
Augustine, 2009). This is one of the flagship teacher training programmes not only
in Trinidad and Tobago, but the wider Anglophone Caribbean and has been offered
to teachers in various mutations since 1972. Currently, the programme comprises
four courses (two in the theory of education, one in the curriculum process and one
in the practice of education) offered in a modular format. The practice of education
course is a field-based course and provides the framework for this study.
The practice of education course comprises of two modules: a theoretical
module in which pedagogical principles are taught using a blended delivery
platform; and a field module through which supervised school visits are made to
teachers in their school setting and field days, when teachers are given
opportunities to teach a science lesson in another secondary school (UWI St.
Augustine, 2009). Through the combination of school visits and field days each
86
teacher in the programme is accorded at least six clinical visits by an assigned

supervisor before their performance assessment examination in May. This
performance summative assessment determines 75% of their course grade. For the
remaining 25% of the grade, the teacher develops a portfolio documenting their
professional development growth as science teacher over the year of the
programme. Science teachers therefore learn formally how to teach through these
types of planned supervised interventions, as well as on their own through
reflecting on their direct experiences with students in the science classrooms of the
secondary schools. How they define their discipline, that is, their weltanschauung
about the nature of science, becomes very important since it impacts on what they
teach, how they teach and how they assess science learning by students (McComas,
1998; Schwartz & Lederman, 2002; Abd-El-Kalick & Akerson, 2004).
The Nature of Science (NOS)
The nature of science (NOS) has been the focus of attention in science education
circles and to varying degrees in national education policy documents, as a primary
component of scientific literacy, in both small-island and large developed nationstates (AAAS, 1993; Bell & Lederman, 2003; Meichtry, 1999; Trinidad and
Tobago, National Task Force on Education, 1994). For example, in Trinidad and
Tobago, the 2006 versions of the primary science curriculum and the secondary
education modernization project (SEMP) science curricula, one of the mandates
given to science teachers is to promote effective literacy in science in our
students. (Trinidad and Tobago, MOE, 2003, p. 5). As such NOS is an area that
spawns the science curricula of both large and small island nation-states and
therefore is an ideal area about which meaningful comparisons could be made
across these two diverse types of education systems.
NOS has been defined in many ways in the science education literature. The
most cited definition is that of Lederman & Zeidler (1987) who refer to NOS as
the values and beliefs inherent in scientific knowledge and its development
(p.721). McComas, Clough and Almozroa (1998) are even more explicit and define
NOS as: a fertile hybrid area which blends aspects of various Social Studies of
Science including history, sociology and philosophy of science combined with
research from the cognitive sciences such as psychology into a rich description of
what science is, how it work, how scientists operate as a social group and how
society itself both directs and reacts to scientific endeavours (p4).
Accordingly, science is more than just facts, laws and theories. Therefore the
science education teachers in Trinidad and Tobago, as elsewhere, provide students
should also be more that just the learning of the structure of molecules or the surface
temperature of the sun (Johnson, 2007, p.133). It should also include the method
and its limitations, as well as an appreciation of the practical and social implications,
(British Royal Society of Science, 1985, p.2), that is, the nature of science in its
totality should be presented to students. Fortunately, at the level of secondary
schooling, there is significant academic consensus on the aspects of the nature of
science to be taught in school science if their efforts are to promote scientific literacy
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DORIAN A. BARROW
(capability) in students. In addition to teaching them the facts, laws and theories of
science, it involves teaching them about the methods of science, its culture,
philosophies and histories, as well as an appreciation of the practical and social
implications (AAAS, 1993; Driver, Leach, Millar & Scott 1996; McComas & Olson,
1998; Osborn, Collins, Ratcliffe, Millar, & Duschl, 2003; Lederman, 1992). Hence
the mandate to todays secondary science teachers both in Trinidad and Tobago and
elsewhere, is in helping out the individual student understand these basics of science
in order to promote in the student an effective literacy in science.
Metaphors of Teaching
Prior to the 1990s, research on teaching and teacher behaviours in many developed
countries centred mainly on how teachers were behaving in the classroom and field
and how well students were learning (Cameron, 2002). Since then, the emphasis
has shifted to an exploration of the internal world of teachers, including their
thoughts, perspectives, knowledge and values (Ornstein, 1999). By the mid
nineties, narrative techniques and story-telling were being used to analyze teaching
and teacher thinking (Behar-Horenstein, 1999). The use of narrative analysis
techniques to better understand how teachers teach revealed that metaphors have
been used in guiding the search for best teaching strategies (Cameron, 2002).
A metaphor is a way of thinking, an image that once captured by the mind can
guide an action to its completion, that is, it is a way of coming to know
something (Elliott, 2009). Metaphors can be understood as a way of expressing or
conceptualizing something esoteric, abstruse and/or abstract in terms of that are
well known or familiar (Tobin & Tippins, 1996). Metaphors can make an idea
more transparent and easy to understand. A metaphor about teaching expresses in
the form of imagines or analogies the work that teachers do. A teacher is the
captain of a ship, for example, is one familiar metaphor (Tobin & Tippins, 1996).
Since metaphors about teaching are used by teachers to conceptualize what is
going on in daily activities, understanding the metaphors the teacher uses offers a
glimpse of the ideas of the person (Ornstein, 1999).
There are many critical entailments or attributes of the teaching metaphors
teachers use in their classrooms (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). A metaphor about
science teaching compares the processes and concepts related to instruction to
something more familiar or more clearly understood and so is linked to the science
teachers conceptions of teaching science (Hewson & Hewson, 1989). Metaphors
about teaching therefore aid the construction of analytic relationships and in so
doing may help in facilitating conceptual change. Tobin and Tippins (1996) have
pointed that metaphors also serve as a link between what is known and what is
unknown and provide a connection between images and language. These two
qualities, they argue, may allow the teacher to build new knowledge and construct
better strategies for teaching.
Hence the strongest warrant for the use of metaphors in an analysis like this one,
lie in their ability to stimulate critical self-reflection in both prospective and current
teachers. A classification system will obviously make it easier for both the
88
researcher and the teachers to become more aware of the nature of teaching
through metaphor-based reflection, as well as provide the researcher with an
operational typology for classifying in-service science teachers conceptions of
science teaching. This should allow for comparisons between conceptions of
teaching among science teachers. Comparing and contrasting the teacher metaphors
may reveal several aspects of the conceptions of science teaching (Hewson &
Hewson, 1989) that could be unique to science teachers operating in the context of
small-island education units like Tobago.
There are many ways to categorize teaching metaphors. Four classes into which
teaching metaphors are traditionally assigned include art-oriented, businessoriented, science-oriented and power-oriented metaphors (Cameron, 2002).
Business-oriented metaphors liken teaching to a business-related activity. Here,
teaching takes on all the important aspects of business that result in its success. An
example would be when a teacher views science teaching as banking. This
metaphor assumes that learning is a form of commodity and that learning and
teaching are, respectively, the receiving and delivering processes. Business-based
metaphors may contribute to the efficiency of classroom management for teachers.
The obvious danger is that in reducing an educational institution to a business setup
the pursuit of truth as a fundamental plank in the nature of science may be
sacrificed for the sake of practicality (McComas, 1998).
One common thread that connects all the science-oriented metaphors, the
second class of metaphors, is that there are rules and principles of teaching that can
be studied and modeled and that it is possible for anyone to reproduce the results
created by the expert teacher. An example would be when a science teacher views
himself or herself as a football coach. The strength of these metaphors is that
they encourage teachers to focus on the things that can be controlled, making it
easier for them to run the classroom. One weakness is that it might lead to
stringency and inflexibility in the teaching process (Koppi et al., 1998). Poweroriented metaphors, on the other hand, are concerned with who has control in the
classroom (Tobin & Tippins, 1996). In this category of metaphors, the distribution
of power reflects what is happening in the science classroom. Like the scienceoriented metaphor, its strengths and weaknesses are similar.
Power-oriented metaphors are a very popular category among science teachers
in developed nations. Gurney (1995) for example, in reporting on a study he
carried out in the United States, said that among the 130 metaphors volunteered by
prospective high school science teachers 56 metaphors dealt with the teacher
having control, only 13 with students having control and 27 with having shared
control. A popular example of a power-oriented teaching metaphor is teacher as
the captain of a ship. The power-oriented teaching metaphors are in many ways
diametrically opposite to the art-oriented metaphors of teaching.
The art-oriented teaching metaphors focus on the creative side of the teaching
process, including judgments, insight, sensitivity to the needs of students and
spontaneity in responses to student questions and demands. An example would be
teacher as conductor of an orchestra (James 2006). When teachers take on the
perspectives of an artist, they place as much emphasis on the process of teaching as
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DORIAN A. BARROW
on the results. Many science educators believe that the regular use of art-based
metaphors can produce better teachers (Tobin & Tippins, 1996).
Summary
The debate in the literature is dominated by publications in favour of culturalist
approaches. However, teaching practices have changed little and remain based on
traditional universalist views of the nature of science and of science education.
(Aikenhead, 2001; Scastlebury, McKinley & Jesson, 2002). In reviewing the
literature on science teacher education, Atwater and Crocket (2003) point to some
omissions that urgently need attention. It is essential, they say, that science
educators and researchers examine their personal worldviews, beliefs, attitudes and
images of science learning and teaching. In summary, the literature argues strongly
that Indigenous student participation and performance in science are undermined
by low teacher efficacy, low student self-expectation, cultural stereotypes,
inadequate teacher subject, pedagogical and cultural knowledge and conflict
between the culture of the home and the culture of the school (McKinley, 2007).
What makes the phenomenon even more complex is that many of these factors
interact with each other and are difficult to separate out. Hence exploring
Indigenous teachers beliefs about the NOS and science education and how they
enact those beliefs in their science classrooms as a possible solution in enhancing
science teachers efficacy to improve their teaching is a viable research activity.
METHOD
Survey
A 50-item survey instrument developed and validated by Pomeroy (1993) was used
to examine teachers beliefs about the nature of science and the nature of science
teaching. It consisted of: .agree-disagree statements on a 51 Likert scale
ranging from Baconian beliefs to some alternative ideas suggested by Popper,
Polanyi, Keller, Gould and Kuhn. These include consideration of the roles of
deduction, art, perception, attitude, judgment, community and prior belief in
shaping the work of scientists and their knowledge of nature (Pomeroy, 1993, p.
263).
The questionnaire also inquired into beliefs about science education, including
statements about the role of the laboratory experience, process vs. content, depth
vs. breath and mastery vs. exploration (Pomeroy, 1993, p. 263). Demographic and
biographic data was also collected for comparative and descriptive purposes.
This survey was selected for two reasons. The first is that I had over a three year
period (2006 2008) validated the scales of the questionnaire using samples of
T&T primary and secondary school science teachers and had found the scale
reliability to be moderate (Alpha Coefficient = .7721). The second reason was that
it allowed for the juxtaposition of data generated in this study on to the data
generated in the original study that Pomeroy did in 1993 with science teachers in
Alaska to attempt a limited comparative analysis of the views of the nature of
90
science and to the extent possible of science teaching, that the surveys data
suggested these teachers in these two communities displayed.
Samples
The size of the sample in the Tobago inquiry was about one seventh the size of the
sample in the Pomeroys (1993) Alaskan study, which reflected somewhat the
relative sizes of the student populations these two sets of teachers serve. The
teachers in the Tobago study were all enrolled in the pilot postgraduate diploma in
education programme. The latter may have therefore felt obligated to fill out the
survey when requested to do so by the investigator given that he was coordinating
the programme. They may also have felt that they had to respond to the questions
in ways that would please the investigator. In Pomeroys (1993) study the
participants volunteered possibly given their interest in the philosophy of science,
which she cited as a potential source of bias. None of the teachers in the Tobago
study had taken a course in the history or philosophy of science as was the case
with the Pomeroys sample and so their responses may not have been influenced in
this way. There was however great variance (range 23 years) in the number of
years of teaching science to high school students in the Tobago sample, which may
have increased the likelihood of some of older teachers hearing about these modern
views of science and science education, than the younger ones.
Demographic Description of the Teachers
The 49 secondary school science teachers who responded to the survey in the
Pomeroy study had mean age of 37.3 (SD = 7.99) and they reported a mean of
12.7 (SD = 7.05) years of teaching experience (Pomeroy 1993 p.264). There was a
2:1 ratio of women to men. Seven science teachers participated in the Tobago
survey. The ratio of women to men was 2.5 to 1. They all had first degrees (B.Sc.)
in science in the traditional disciplines of Physics (2), Biology (4) and Chemistry
(1). Three taught in two rural high schools and the remaining four taught in urban
high schools. Six of the seven went straight into teaching upon graduating from
university. One of the biologists had worked three years at a marine biology field
station in Tobago as a research assistant before she went into teaching. None
expressed any special interest in the history and philosophy of science.
Portfolios as Data Sources
As part of the course each of the Tobago teachers was required to develop a
teaching portfolio whose purpose was:
To showcase your unique professional identity, highlighting the specific
elements contributed to its formation. [Furthermore it was to] provide a holistic
record of the professional work you accomplished during the year, [and] to
demonstrate your integration of theory and practice and your ability to reflect on
your work. (UWI, St. Augustine, 2009, p. 13).
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DORIAN A. BARROW
A teaching or developmental portfolio represents a completed selection of

student work. It contains work that shows the students progress towards the
mastery of set objectives for a topic, theme, or course of work and provides
evidence of his/her achievement over a period of time (Cain, Edwards-Henry &
Rampersad 2005, p. 4). One of the selected items from each of the Tobago
teachers working collection that made it into each of their portfolios was a
statement of personal teaching philosophy (UWI St. Augustine, 2009, p. 13). The
statement included their metaphor of science teaching. Their portfolios were
therefore used as the data source for the teachers metaphors. . Each metaphor was
characterized by orientation and placed in one of the four orientation categories for
further analysis.
Classroom Observations
In this study the influence of teacher characteristics of the nature of science, the
nature of science education and teaching metaphors on science teaching were
examined in the high school setting. Each of the Tobago science teachers used a
different metaphor to describe their conceptions of teaching and learning science.
Each teacher was observed five times teaching science to a class in their school and
two times teaching science to a class in another high school. The observations were
all clinical classroom observations in that they all accommodated pre and postobservation conferences. A rubric constructed specifically for this purpose was
used to guide the classroom observations and the investigator generated field notes
immediately following each of the field supervisory observation visits. Selected
teachers were also interviewed informally. Notes taken from these interviews were
also compiled. An interpretative approach (Creswell, 2003; Bogdan & Biklen,
2003) was used to track teachers enactment of their teaching metaphors and
related their instruction to their nature of science and related nature of science
education, views.
ANALYSIS OF THE FINDINGS
Analysis of the Survey

At the first level, analysis of the survey was guided by the approaches Pomeroy
used in her 1993 publication using descriptive statistics. This was, in part, to be in
a better position to juxtapose the findings of the two studies to determine if any
patterns could be attributed to the two different contexts Alaska and Tobago.
Using an etic-type approach, the categories that Pomeroy identified in 1993 were
juxtaposed on the Tobago data. Hence statements designed to represent traditional
and nontraditional views of science and science education, were similarly clustered
and analyzed. The three basic clusters were: a traditional view of science; a
traditional view of science education; and, nontraditional views of science. From
the summary variables created, the means and distributions from the Tobago
sample were examined and compared to those of Pomeroys.
92
Additionally, t-tests and Pearson correlations on the three summary variables

with the biographic data from the Tobago sample allowed comparisons of the
responses of views of the NOS: vs years of teaching experience; vs location of the
school; vs views on the nature of science education; and vs gender. These
comparisons were repeated for the clusters: traditional views of science education
and nontraditional views of science in the Tobago sample only.
Traditional View of Science
The following is a sample of those statements that are generally associated with
traditional views of science and that contributed to the cluster:
26. The best way to prepare to become a scientist is to master the scientific body of
knowledge available in the finest texts.
29. Most scientists believe nature strictly obeys laws.
The internal consistency for these statements was moderate for both samples of
teachers, with the Alaskan sample having a slightly higher consistency rating
(Cromback alpha = .651) than the Tobago sample (Alpha = 0.547). The mean
scores suggests that the secondary school science teachers of Tobago (mean = 3.20,
SD = .47) were as traditional in their views of science as the Alaskan teachers
(mean = 3.20; SD = .46).
Traditional View of Science Education
A sample of those statements that are generally associated with the traditional
views of science education included:
31. Science learning should proceed, wherever possible, hierarchically.
35. A big weakness of discovery activities in science education is the difficulty in
getting the children to come up with the right answers.
The internal consistency of these statements among the Alaska teachers was high
(Cromback Alpha = .809), whereas it was only moderate for the Tobago sample
(Alpha = .654). The mean scores of the two sets of teachers on this cluster of
questions were also different, with the Alaskan teachers (mean = 2.36, SD =.49)
having a much lower score than the Tobago teachers (mean = 3.02, SD = .41).
Though the mean difference is only 0.66, the effect size (Cohens d = 1.47,
p = 0.05) is large and suggests that the difference in mean scores is significant.
Nontraditional View of Science
The following is a sample of those statements that are generally associated with
nontraditional views of science and that which contributed to that cluster.
5. Intuition plays an important role in scientific discovery.
24. There is a significant amount of scientific knowledge in folklore and myth.
The internal consistency for these statements was moderate for both samples, with
the Alaskan sample having a slightly higher consistency rating (Alpha = .592) than
the Tobago sample (Alpha = .500). The mean score for the Tobago teachers on
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DORIAN A. BARROW
these cluster of questions was 3.54 (SD = .46). Pomeroy did not report on the mean
score of the Alaskan high school science teachers on this cluster. She did, however,
noted that elementary teachers (mean = 4.13, SD = .47) scored significantly (p =
0.009, F = 0.432) higher than secondary school teachers (Pomeroy 1993, p. 268).
Teaching Metaphors
The seven teachers described their teaching using metaphors that characterized
all four orientations. This suggests that they came to know how the nature of
science is related to science education, in at least four different ways (Elliott 2009).
The distribution of the metaphors adopted by orientation categories are as follows:
Business-Oriented, one, T4; Science-Oriented, one, T6; Power-Oriented, two, T2
& T3; and Art-Oriented, three T1, T5 and T7. This feature was specific to the
Tobago study.
The Art-oriented category had the highest frequency of metaphors, followed by
the Power-oriented category. The latter category had the added distinction of
comprising of all female science teachers, each with five or less years teaching
experience. The Power-oriented category comprises a female (T3) with limited
teaching experience (5 years or less) and a male science teacher (T2) who had been
teaching physics at the same secondary school for 26 years. This is how T3
described how she came to know how to teach through her Power-orient science
teaching metaphor:
T3: At the start of the diploma in education programme I was encouraged to
reflect on and document my metaphor of teaching. I considered myself to be the
captain of a ship, the classroom. My tasks as captain include ensuring the ship
moved forward by policing, mothering, doctoring, and counseling. My purpose for
teaching was developing competencies in my students in my particular subject area
so that my students are equipped with the knowledge necessary for passing both
their internal school examination and the CXC examinations.
This view of teaching is in sharp contrast to T7, who conceptualized her
teaching using an Art-oriented metaphor.
T7: [As a teacher] I am an artist and my students are the pieces of a collage.
Everyone in the classroom brings a little piece to the table. Each piece is of
different shape and size, texture and colorThe pieces are all unique and
represent each childs special talents, , background, even faults. [As teacher] I
am a guide, not a director.
Though all four metaphor orientations will be utilized in how the Tobago
teachers come to know how to teach science in the analysis, emphasis will be
placed on the Power and Art-orientations, as most of the Tobago teachers
Metaphors fell in one or the other of these two categories.
Interpretation of Findings
The question of the impact that context possibly has on the differences between
Tobago and Alaska secondary school science teachers views of the nature of
science and related aspects of science education has been suggested within the
limits of their summative responses to the clusters of statements in these two
94
surveys. There are three findings that require further analysis and interpretation:
the suggestion that both groups have moderately traditional views of the nature of
science, the noted and significant difference in their views of the nature of science
education and the significant negative correlation (Pearson r = - .841, p = .018)
between years of teaching experience and traditional views of science education in
the Tobago sample.
Years of Teaching
Summaries of the t-tests and the Pearson correlations performed on the three
summary variables with the biographic data were generated using the SPSS
statistical programme. The only statistically significant correlation (Pearson r = .841, p = .018) was that between years of teaching experience and traditional views
of science education. A negative sign gives the direction of the correlation and
suggest that an inverse relation exist between years of teaching experience and the
traditional views of science education, that is, the younger teachers (those with less
than five teaching experience) have more traditional views of science education
than the older, more experienced teachers.
There are several possible explanations for this apparent trend. The first is that
the younger teachers just recently left university (within the last five years) where
they have been exposed to science taught to them in traditional ways of objective
normal science (Kuhn, 1970). This is opposed to revolutionary science where
there is a constant questioning of the adequacy of the core theories, principles and
procedures of the science discipline and there is less faith in the absolute nature of
scientific knowledge. The older teachers have been away from that milieu for a
much longer period and so some of its hold on them may have weaned off.
Furthermore, the older teachers being in the system longer, may have had more
opportunities to attend in-service teacher training workshops, where they would
have been exposed to some of the more contemporary views of science education,
including such philosophical ideas as constructivism which undermines some of
the traditional positivistic assumptions of normal science (Mathews, 2000). That
this may in fact be the case is suggested in the comment that T3 made in an elite
interview on professional development opportunities:
T3: I have been teaching at this school for almost five years and have been to
only one workshop and that was the one organized by CXC when they were
launching the new CSEC Chemistry syllabus. The THA has not sponsored any
science workshop that I know of over this period. And our science department head
here at school has not organized anything since I have been here either.
Additionally, the older teachers have been in the science classrooms for longer
periods of time and so have been provided more opportunities to experience what
science education is really like [T2, teacher with 26 years experience] from
interactions with and learning from their students in the reality of the science
classrooms. Mccomas (1998) has pointed out that young science teachers bring to
the classroom many of the myths associated with the nature of science and the
nature of science teaching, some of which they obtain from science textbooks
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DORIAN A. BARROW
(Chiappetta, Sethna & Fillman, 1993). These myths include: modern western
science (MWS) models represent reality; scientists are particularly objective;
scientific laws derived through MWS and such ideas are absolute; a general and
universal scientific method exist; and, science is more procedural than creative
(Mccomas, 1998). The older science teachers are generally less dependent on
textbooks in their teaching having covered the material taught repeatedly for
many years [T2] and so may be less influenced by these textbook myths about the
nature of science. On the other hand, the younger science teachers, who are
generally much more dependent on textbooks in their teaching than their senior
counterparts (Stern & Roseman, 2004), might also be more inclined to not only
continue to propagate these myths among Indigenous students, but may also
continue to view modern western science in these mythical ways.
Traditional View of Science
As the two sample statements (26 and 29) illustrate, the traditional view of science
cluster comprise those statements that Mccomas (1999) cites as mythical beliefs
about the nature of science. That the best path to becoming successful in science is
through finding ways of how to memorize huge chunks of science texts and
regurgitate the [undigested] material in these high stakes examinations, is a popular
notion among some science teachers in the Caribbean. This is one possible
explanation for why the supplementary tutoring industry in the Anglophone
Caribbean has remained so profitable over the last two decades (Lochan & Barrow,
2008). T3 in elaborating on her power-oriented teaching metaphor said: My
purpose for teaching was to developing competencies in my students in my
particular subject area so that my students are equipped with the knowledge
necessary for passing both their internal school examination and the CXC
examination. This not only suggest a narrow focus of the purpose of science
education, but also a traditional view of science that Schwab (1964) calls a
rhetoric of conclusions, a view that scientific knowledge found the finest texts
were handed to us as is. This is opposed to the more contemporary view of
scientific knowledge being the product of a process of human thought, constructed
through a process of careful observations, critical inquiry and human creativity.
Over seven decades ago, Riechenbach (1938) and more recently Feyerabend
(1993), argued that this traditional view of science is the result of a confusion
between what they call the context of discovery and the context of justification.
What appears in textbooks and science journals are not verbatim reports on how
the knowledge was generated, but instead a rational argument in the effort on the
part of the scientists to communicate and even persuade, the scientific community,
or the research patrons, of the validity of the discovery. In the actual process of
discovery where the real work of science is done, Feyerabend (1993) contents that
the process is anarchic and anything goes. With science for many teachers being
whatever is in the science textbook (Chiapetta, Sethna & Fillman, 1993), or on the
CXC syllabus/examinations [T3], or in the case of the Alaska science teachers ,
whats in the State Standards (Maccomas & Olson, 1998), it was not at all
96
surprising that both sample of teachers had summative views of science that tended
to the traditional (Mean score 3.20) and the strong consistency in the cluster
suggests that respondents were expressing a coherent philosophy at work
(Pomeroy, 1993, p. 269).
Traditional Views of Science Education
Responses to statements in this cluster suggest some fundamental differences
between the two samples of teachers surveyed on this dimension of the study. The
Alaskan teachers are shown to be less traditional in their views of science
education than the Tobago teachers. Specifically, their views about the role inquiry
in science education and the role of induction, two of the most important process
skills in the scientific enterprise, differed significantly. For example there were
distinctly divergent responses to the statement: 40. Children in science should be
discouraged from wild ideas and encouraged to think carefully and logically,
with the Tobago teachers largely agreeing with the statement. The same level of
differences in response to the statement: 37. Reading and worksheets can be a
very effective way to teach science. Hence the average scores on this cluster of
statements (Alaska teachers mean = 2.36 and Tobago teachers 3.02) and the
respective high and moderate level of variance, suggest that the respondents in the
two samples were experiencing coherent differences in beliefs about the nature of
science education.
What can reasonably account for this difference? As pointed out by
Pomeroy(1993), Gallagher (1991) has offered a plausible explanation for the
strength of the traditional view points among secondary science teachers. Gallagher
(1991) sited teacher preparation programmes that are heavy in science, have no
room for philosophy of science and are taught by professors who do not believe in
the importance of such studies. Beginner teachers emerge from these programmes
with maximum of content at the expense of reflection about process (Pomeroy
1993, p. 270). The Tobago teachers, all of whom enter teaching with only the B.Sc.
in their science discipline, emerge from these university science programmes with
even more science content than their Alaskan counterparts, who by and large
acquire their science content as part of the B.Ed. degree. These B.Ed. degree
programmes include at least one full course on science teaching methods that
provide prospective teachers with some opportunities to reflect, in a formal way,
on the processes of science and on the teaching-learning processes. Given that this
fundamental difference in the way how these two samples of science teachers are
prepared to come to science classroom exist, may account for the significant
difference in their views on science education. Furthermore, the critique of the
universalist conception of modern western science as articulated by culturalist
science educators like Aikenhead (1996), Barnhardt (2001), Cobern (1993) and
Pomeroy (1993), has been apart of the Alaskan teachers consciousness for a much
longer period of time than their counterparts in Tobago who are now just begining
to struggle with the idea of viewing modern western science as cultural
knowledge (Aikenhead & Huntley, 1999).
97
DORIAN A. BARROW
CONCLUSION
Much work need to follow this very preliminary effort at cross-cultural

comparative analysis in science teachers beliefs about the nature of science and
science education, if we are going to move forward in the direction suggested by
Sweeney (2003). Though no firm conclusions can be drawn from such a limited
exploratory inquiry like this one, it did provide some insights into the form any
such future studies could take and suggests some possible implications for science
teacher education in the region.
Firstly, any future attempt at cross-cultural comparisons between Caribbean
science teachers and teachers functioning in the context of more developed or
developing nation-states must make sampling a higher priority, both in terms of
sample size and space. In this study a convenient small sample was used and the
space was limited to just Tobago, one education district in one of the seventeen
states of the Anglophone Caribbean. Any other effort should at least draw its
sample from science teachers in all eight education districts of the Republic of
Trinidad and Tobago and if practical extend the space to include at least four other
nation states including such Caribbean countries as Barbados, St. Lucia, Jamaica
and Belize. One implication of this is that more preliminary work is needed to first
determine the intra and inter-island differences in teachers beliefs about the nature
of science and related aspects of science education of these teachers in the region.
It is therefore hoped that this study will be viewed as a first step in that direction.
Within the limits of this study there were also suggested implications for the
way in which school authorities in the region hire its science teachers and for the
type of training science teachers need to undergo. Also, there seem to be an extant
need for more in-service teacher education opportunities for the current pool of
science teachers. The significant difference in the views of the nature of science
education of the two sets of teachers examined in this study, suggests that policy
makers might wish to consider making teacher education a mandatory requirement
before any such persons could be considered for a teaching position. In this regard
there are several models of teacher preparation that could be evaluated for
suitability.
One such model would require pre-service teacher training in science education
up to at least the B.Ed. level where teachers would major in a content area like
chemistry education or biology education, before they can apply for a teaching
position. A second model, sometimes called the three plus one model, would
require the prospective teacher to first complete a degree in a science discipline
followed by one full year of teacher training in the science curriculum area. Either
of these models could help to correct the highly traditional views of the nature of
science and related aspects of science education, displayed by the Tobago teachers
in this limited sample.
Finally, more priority should be given to targeted in-service science education
for those teachers currently making up the teaching pool. One teacher, [T3],
complained of being in the system for almost five years and only once was
accorded an in-service professional development opportunity in science education.
Similar comments from the other younger science teachers who participated in this
98
study, suggest that the experience of T3, was more the norm than an isolated
experience. This clearly is not the desirable state of affairs. There is therefore much
to learn from the way how the more developed nations, as well those in a similar
state of development, prepare and support their science teachers in their efforts to
move towards the common goal of scientific literacy for all students and to make
better use of the Indigenous scientific knowledge students and communities
possess. Support for more cross-cultural studies like this one can be one of ways to
move forward in this direction.
NOTES
i
ii
As cited in Sweeneys (2003) review, the people who have done work in these areas are: The role
and purposes of science education (Lambert 1974, Mark 1978); Culture and cognitive development
(Fraser-Abder 1985, King 1978); Science and curriculum development (Alexander and Glasgow
1981); Science teacher education (Brathwaite 1978); The impacts of science on social issues and
concerns (King 1987); Scientific literacy (Glasgow 1986); The relationships between Caribbean
beliefs and conventional science (George & Glasgow 1999, George 2001, Herbert 2008).
Belize is one of the 17 member states that make up the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Like
Guyana and Surinam, Belize is not an island-state, being situated in the Central American isthmus
east of Guatemala, north of Honduras and south of Mexico. Its land mass is about the size of the
State on Maine with a population of 350,000 people. The population comprise of two major ethnic
groups, Creole and Mestizo, and two minor ones, Maya and Garifuna. Creole and Garinagu peoples
are descendants of enslaved Africans.
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102
F. AHIA AND E. FREDUA-KWARTENG
GAZING MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

IN GHANA
YE ASISI YEN (WE HAVE BEEN SHORTCHANGED!)
INTRODUCTION
Mathematics and science (biology, chemistry and physics) education in Ghana is

viewed in the same way as education in general and all other institutions and
practices passed on to Ghanaians by the British colonialists. Ghanaians have hardly
asked the purposes of those institutions and practices passed on to them by the
colonialists. Instead, they have assumed that those institutions and practices serve
and will serve their purposes or aspirations. However, time has shown consistently
that they have not and will not serve their purposes without a substantial reform to
bring them in line with their national aspirations. As far as mathematics and
science education is concerned, our substantive questions are these: why do we
teach and learn mathematics and science in Ghanaian schools? By what methods
could teachers teach mathematics and science more effectively? Though we do not
have complete answers to these questions, we have suggestions about why
mathematics and science should form part of the education of Ghanaian schools.
In fact, once we have an idea about the purposes for teaching and learning
mathematics and science in Ghanaian schools, we may know what and how we
should teach and learn mathematics and science.
In this chapter, our primary objective is to critique mathematics and science
teaching and learning in Ghanaian schools (primary, junior and senior secondary)
using goal setting as our discursive lens. The chapter uses a case study approach. A
case is extremely important if the phenomenon of interest provides insights and
sheds light on similar phenomena elsewhere (Dooley, 2002). As researchers have
noted the development of effective mathematics and science education for preuniversity institutioni in Africa is a continental problem (International Mathematics
Union, 2009). Therefore, using mathematics and science education in Ghanaian
schools as a case study are likely to provide a useful analysis for understanding
mathematics and science education in other Africa countries. We argue that lack of
clear goals for pre-university education in general and mathematics and science
education in particular contributes to this problem.
The theory of goals that posits that purpose or objectives set direction and
standards for an organization, programme and project informed this paper. Without
precise publicly declared goals it is almost impossible to evaluate mathematics and
science education performance and determine gains and shortfalls.
The chapter is organized as follows. The first section focuses on the discursive
lens that undergirds the paper. We believe that the development, articulation and
implementation of clear goals for mathematics and science education will set the
direction for the development of relevant instructional practices and appropriate
assessment modalities. We emphasize that the theory of setting up goals with its
elements of committing to goals, feedback, publicity, specificity, participation,
competition and reward could be used for improving mathematics and science
taught in Ghanaian primary and secondary schools. The second section discusses
briefly the trajectory of the purposes, organization and outcomes of education from
the colonial to the present time. The third section concentrates on examining the
reasons for teaching and learning mathematics and science. It suggests national
goals for both mathematics and science education in Ghana. The fourth section
gives a typical portrayal of mathematics and science classroom in both primary and
secondary schools in Ghana. This section highlights the fact that the traditional
teaching pedagogyii for mathematics and science cannot achieve the goals we have
suggested; hence the need for a shift in teaching pedagogy. The conclusion
summarizes the benefits of having clear national goals for mathematics and science
education in Ghana as well as other African countries. The section also briefly
discusses possible areas of mathematics and science research in Ghana.
The sub-title of this chapter Ya Sisi Yeniii comes from the response of one of
the authors Ghanaian friends after a student in grade 3 illustrated to him the
technique of finding the area of a triangle by drawing grids. It hit the friend that he
was taught to use knowledge (formula) and so could only find the area of ideal
spaces, while the student in grade 3 constructed knowledge and so could find the
area of any space.
DISCURSIVE LENS
The above vignette leads to our discursive lens that underlies our critique of the
pedagogy of mathematics and science teaching and learning in Ghanaian schools.
Our observation is that mathematics and science education in Ghana schools lack
clear, sustained focus. That is, because primary and secondary education does not
have clearly articulated goals, mathematics and science education equally does not
have any clearly established and articulated goals. In this situation anything goes:
inadequate curriculum, irrelevant teaching pedagogy and deficient assessment
practices. Ndala (2006) has concluded that policy-makers and experts of secondary
education in sub-Saharan Africa have failed over the years to develop precise goals
for secondary education in the continent and still use the teaching pedagogy set up
by the colonialist, which has nothing to do with the problems and challenges facing
African countries.
A goal is what an individual or group strives to accomplish in a specific time
span. It is a future outcome that is more valued and significant due to the
dissatisfaction with the current situation and the desire to attain a specific outcome
in order to improve the current situation (Locke and Latham, 2006). Locke et al.,
(1981) observed that the concept of goals is similar in meaning to the concepts of
104
purpose and intent, performance standards and objectives. A goal has a massive
influence on the human consciousness in that it directs and dictates action. As
Locke and Latham (2006) have observed typically, a goal, once accepted and
understood, remains in the periphery consciousness as a reference point for guiding
and giving meaning to subsequent mental and physical action (p.267). This
suggests that goals provide motivation for action.
However, goal setting without goal commitment is inconsequential. Goal
commitment is the exertion and extension of effort over time toward the attainment
of the original goal and unwillingness to abandon or lower the original goal.
Simply put, goal commitment is a psychological attachment and identification with
established goals. Several situational factors such as feedback, publicity,
specificity, participation, competition and reward structure affect goal attainment
(Hollenbeck and Klein, 1987). Feedback is evaluation or judgment of an outcome
or result with the object of motivating current and future behavior adjustment in
order to achieve the desired outcome. Goals and feedbacks are inseparably
intertwined because it is impossible to have one without the other. Feedback is an
evaluative tool that helps to maintain consistent improvement on performance
(Wilk and Redmon, 1998). Publicity is the extent to which goals are articulated to
the public, so that almost every stakeholderiv of the education enterprise is aware of
the goals to be achieved. In the case of state organizations, publically declared
goals may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the organization. Specificity
relates to goal clarity. Vague goals are worse than no goals at all, in that they tend
to confuse implementers rather than help them. Participation has to do with the
extent of involvement of goal implementers in setting the goal. Goals have greater
likelihood of being committed to and implemented, if the implementers
participated in setting the goals (Locke and Latham, 2006). Competition internally
or externally generated is a pressure aimed at inducing goal commitment and
achievement. Competition could come from any stakeholders of the school system.
Finally, rewards for goal attainment such as public recognition, promotion, job
contract extension or increased remuneration have an impact on goal commitment.
Goals development is also related to economy, efficiency, effectiveness and
relevance (Phang, 2006; Thomas, 2007). Economy focuses on the cost of input
acquisition for production of a desired outcome or result. Inputs in education may
include facilities, teaching materials, qualified teachers, parents and community
support. The nature of a goal influences how much an organization is prepared to
pay for its input cost. Efficiency refers to the use of resources in producing specific
results. Efficiency is high when greater result is attained with lesser expenditure of
input costs. In some cases, the costs of alternative programmes for attaining goals
are compared in order to choose those that are cost effective. So cost effective is an
extension of efficiency. Effectiveness, on the other hand, has to do with why an
organization, programme, project or intervention exists. A programme or
organization should justify its existence by achieving goals that are socially
desirable with little undesirable social consequences. The last goal-related concept
is relevance. Relevance focuses specifically on programmes, interventions or
projects that are consistent with established goals.
105
Setting up too high or low goals could lead to demoralization on the part of
those required to implement the goals. While SMARTv goal setting principles may
help, Ordonez et al., (2009) cautioned that goal setting requires considerable
thoughts and deep reflections.
HISTORY OF SCHOOL GOALS, ORGANIZATION AND RESULTS IN GHANA
In this section, we discuss briefly how the current Ghanaian system of school
education came into being, including its purposes, organization and related results.
We start with the colonial period and proceed to the postcolonial vi period. We
divide the postcolonial period into Nkrumah period and post-Nkrumah period,
because the set of education problems in that era was qualitatively different from
the post-Nkrumah era. It was also during the Nkrumah era that Ghanaian education
system in terms of access and enrolment won the international acclamation as one
of the best on the continent of Africa (The World Bank, 2004). After the overthrow
of Nkrumah by a military coup, the Ghanaian school education system started
deteriorating and most of Nkrumah government policies and initiatives that were
designed to link education to scientific, technological, economic and social
development of Ghana were abandoned.
COLONIAL EDUCATION IN GHANA
Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, is a republic democracy located in West African
with an estimated population of 24million. It shares a border with the Ivory Coast
to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east and the Gulf of Guinea to
the south. In 1874 the United Kingdom established the Gold Coast Colony over a
portion of present day Ghana. In March 6, 1957, when the Gold Coast became
independent it adopted the name Ghana, reflecting the ancient Empire of Ghana
which once extended throughout much of West Africa.
The Christian missionaries laid down the foundation of colonial education in
Ghana around the 18th century. The missionary primary schools established in
Ghana were accessible to few children and youth who lived in the coastal areas. In
1890 a director of education was appointed to oversee the organization and
management of schools in the Gold Coast (Mazonde, n.d). By 1951, pre-university
enrolments in Ghana were as follows: 154,360 in primary schools, 66,175 in
middle school and 3,559 in secondary and technical schools (Thompson and
Casely-Hayford, 2008). The curriculum, teaching pedagogy, administration and
assessment of student performance were determined by the education director and
were based on a modified version of British school system. Most of the secondary
schools provided boarding facilities where students were provided accommodation
and food (Obeng, 2002). In terms of structure, the colonial administration adopted
the British education system: primary, secondary, sixth form and higher education.
Secondary school students completed their schooling by participating in general
certificate of education (GCE) examination conducted by Cambridge University or
London University in the UK. In 1952 the West African Examination council was
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established with the mandate to conduct public examinations and award

appropriate certificates the GCE, in the Gold Coast, Nigeria Sierra Leone and the
Gambia. In 1974, Liberia joined the councilvii.
During the colonial period the purposes or goals of primary and secondary
schools in the Gold Coast were not articulated publicly by the colonial administration.
From the literature the following purposes of the colonial education emerge:
To socialize students with the English language and culture with an emphasis on
the liberal arts (English literature, Latin, religion, British history, geography,
etc.) (Mazonde, n.d;);
To train local personnel who will continue or collaborate with the colonialists in
their economic extraction and cultural indoctrination (Jagusah, 2001);
To emphasize obedience and submission to British colonial authority and
discourage any individual initiative and inquiry that challenge or question such
authority (Adas, 1989).
To remove students psychologically from their cultural environment and
inculcate in them a desire for English culture, worldview and epistemology
(Busia, 1964; Mazrui, 1978; Mazonde, n.d; Jagusah, 2001; Addo, 2004); and
To make the Christian theology a fundamental part of the schooling experience
and as a basis of civilizing, disciplining and Christianizing students in order to
save them from their heathen and barbaric nature (Memmi, 1965; Adas, 1989).
These were part of the goals of the European Doctrine of Civilizing Mission, by
which Europeans would invent, finance and command; Africans and Asians
would acculturate, labour and obey. Industrial Europe would serve as the
international source of money and machine capital and cheap consumer goods;
Africa and Asia would provide market outlets for Europes manufacturers and raw
materials for its factories (Ada, 1989, p. 271).
The first official education policy by the British government for its African
colonies in 1925 proposed the following model of education: African education
should be adapted to local conditions by placing emphasis on local traditions,
vernacular languages, technical, vocational and religious education (Fafunwa,
1971, p.46). The absence of mathematics and science education was deliberate.
There were two reasons for this omission, the first was the European notion that
Africans lacked the mental capacity to comprehend mathematics and science and
the second was in pursuit of the goals of the civilizing mission. The colonialist
achieved their goal in the colonial period and in Ghana beyond the colonial period;
the educated Ghanaians psychologically grew up to despise their own ancestry and
culture and develop a strong preference for anything British (Mazrui, 2002); Ghana
is a market for European manufactured goods and source of raw materials for its
factories; Ghana, once the British Gold Coast, obeying British command became
HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Country). The colonialist education model produced
many administrative clerks, interpreters and teachers (Stein, 2000). Competency in
mathematics and science by Ghanaians, leading to the development of technologies
to improve the material well being of Ghanaians would be counter productive to
the doctrines of the civilizing mission. So when mathematics and to a lesser extent
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science education was introduced in the colonial schools at the latter part of the
colonial period, Mereku (2000) indicates that the structure and content of the
mathematics curriculum were imported from the United Kingdom and did not have
any connections with the socio-cultural environment of the students.
EDUCATION IN KWAME NKRUMAHS ERA
After attaining political independence from the United Kingdom under the
leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, some of the implicit goals of colonial education
were allowed to direct and dictate education policies. In particular, Nkrumah
government allowed churches-run schools, along with local authority and private
schools. The education system also emphasized obedience and complete
submission to (teacher) authority to the extent that students initiative, inquiry or
questioning were discouraged through verbal reprimands or corporal punishment.
Ghanaian classrooms differed and differ little from a religious Sunday school class.
The government provided funding for both the local authority and church-run
schools. As well, the government increased the number of boarding secondary
schools on the assumption that it brought ethnic and tribal understanding and unity
among Ghanaians (Obeng, 2002). However, the establishment of the ministry of
education responsible for making and implementing education policies and
regulations gave education a definitive hierarchical structure. The goals of general
education in this era were:
To increase access to all levels of education by building more schools;
To use education as the key human resources development;
Train more teachers for primary and secondary schools by setting up more
teacher education institutions; and
To indigenize school curriculum and pedagogy.
The government achieved its goal of mass education. According to Thompson
and Casely-Hayford (2008) primary school enrolment increased by 213%, middle
schools by 142% and secondary schools by 138%. The same authors stated that
60% more teachers were produced compared to the colonial period. Nevertheless,
very little was achieved in respect of the indigenization of the curriculum and
teaching pedagogy. Secondary education supplemented higher institutions to
produce human resources for mostly administrative employment that were
abundant in this era. Paraphrasing (Adas, 1989), a large number of the educated
Ghanaians in this period, were only Africans in blood and colour but more British
in taste, intellect and opinion.
Though the government in this era did not officially articulate any precise goals
for mathematics and science education for Ghanaian schools, the following speech
by Ghanas president at that time, Kwame Nkrumah, provides a vision for
mathematics and science education:
We must seek an African view to the problems of Africa. This does not mean
that western techniques and methods are not applicable to Africa. It does
mean, however, that in Ghana we must look at every problem from the
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African point of view Our whole educational system must be geared to

producing a scientifically-technically minded people. Because of the
limitations placed on us, we have to produce, of necessity, a higher standard
of technical education than is necessary in many of the most advanced
countries of the Western world I believe that one of the most important
services which Ghana can perform for Africa is to devise a system of
education based at its university level on concrete studies of the problems of
the tropical world. The University will be the co-ordinating body for
education research and we hope that it will eventually be associated with
Research Institutes dealing with agriculture, biology and the physical and
chemical sciences which we hope to establish today in a country of five
million inhabitants nearly half a million children enjoy primary education.
We must, however, provide further outlets for these children and give them
an opportunity to learn something of engineering, tropical agriculture and of
the problems of tropical medicine and hygiene. Only with a population so
educated can we hope to face the tremendous problems which confront any
country attempting to raise the standard of life in a tropical zone (McWilliam
& Kwamena-Poh, 1975, p. 94)
From our perspective, Nkrumahs speech provided a foundation for mathematics
and science education regarding curriculum, teaching pedagogy and assessment
modality. We have three reasons for this assertion. First, he wanted Ghanaians to
be scientifically and technologically educated in order to solve problems in their
society. In line with this, Ghanaians were taught more than basic science and
mathematics in primary and secondary schools unlike the colonial period where
they were restricted to learning the minimum at best commercial arithmetic.
Second, the scientific and technical education should enable Ghanaians to solve
concrete, practical problems confronting their society in the fields of engineering,
tropical agriculture, medicine and hygiene.
Finally, the scientific and technical education should provide Ghanaians the
tools for an accelerated improvement in their standards of living. Accordingly,
Nkrumahs government established the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science
and Technology in 1961 for scientific human resources development and the
University College of Science Education (now called University of Cape Coast) to
prepare science and mathematics teachers for secondary schools in Ghana (BrownAcquaye, 2004).
EDUCATION IN POST-NKRUMAH ERA
In the post-Nkrumah period after February 24, 1966, the national goals and
organization of education changed slightly to accommodate a few structural
changes. Ghana Education Service (GES) was established as policy and regulatory
implementation agency of the ministry of education. The 1987/88 reform goals
included the followingviii: (1) to reduce the length of pre-university education from
17 years (6 years of primary school, 4 years of middle school and7 years of
secondary school) to 12 years (6 years of primary education, 3 years of junior
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secondary and 3 years of senior secondary school); (2) To increase access to

education; (3) To improve management of education, including budgeting; (4) To
recover costs of education; and (5) To improve the quality of teaching and learning
for effective outcomes. In fact, all these reform-related goals have been achieved
except the improvement in the quality of teaching and learning.
From 1981 to present, the overall national goals of education in Ghana have
been consistently stable. They are: (1) To provide relevant and quality education to
all Ghanaians; (2) To help disadvantaged Ghanaians to acquire functional literacy
skills; (3) To reduce poverty; and (4) To promote rapid socio-economic growth of
the country (Ghana Ministry of Education, 2004). Apart from the ambiguous nature
of those goals for general education, there is very little evidence that any of the
goals have been fully or partially achieved. As well, it is observable that in spite of
the crucial importance of mathematics and science education for economic and
social development, the ministry of education has not established any concise
national goals for them. Even the West African Examinations Council (2006)
senior secondary school mathematics syllabi do not define any goals for
mathematics and science education.
WHY TEACH AND LEARN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE IN
GHANAIAN SCHOOLS?
The international literature indicates that the goals of mathematics education for
schools (Kindergarten-secondary school) are politically contested among different
social groups, each with its own ideological orientation. According to Ernest
(1994) these groups are roughly divided into five ideological camps: Industrial
Trainers, Technological Pragmatists, Old humanists, Progressive Educators and
Public educators. The industrial trainer aims at inculcating in students basic
mathematical knowledge and skills in order to sustain the prevailing social and
economic systems. Technological pragmatists are industrial-centred, who want a
mathematics curriculum that will equip students with knowledge and skills as
future workers for industries. For the old humanists, mathematical knowledge and
skills should be passed on to young people as part of human cultural heritage.
Accordingly, the old humanists want students to learn mathematics for cultural
survival. The progressive educators view mathematics as an inherent tool for
creativity, innovation and exploration. The progressive educators want young
people to cultivate these characteristics in order to contribute to the progress of
their society. This group is a strong advocate for child-centred mathematics
learning rather than teacher-dominated classroom that maintains standardization,
stifling creativity, innovation and exploration. Finally, the public educators are
interested in establishing a just and fair society, with critical citizenship through
mathematics education. They are interested in empowering students to use
mathematics to identify inequalities in society and to critique mathematical
applications in different social, political and economic contexts.
Unfortunately this ideological grouping does not exist in Ghana for either
mathematics or science education. In fact, the mathematics and science education
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curricula for Ghana schools have not been the subject of any political or
ideological debate or discourse. As far as we know, no group has emerged
advocating a particular national purpose or goals for school mathematics or science
education in Ghanaian schools. This is not to suggest that the Ghanaian education
authorities or individual researchers have not suggested any goals for school
mathematics. The Ghanaian education authorities have suggested that the primary
goal of school mathematics is to nurture the inquiry and creativity of children
through investigational activities (Mereku, 2003). However, the education
authorities do not provide any sample models of investigative activities to allow
students to undertake such activities, nor are teachers prepared in teacher education
institutions to teach mathematics through investigational activities. Another
researcher has suggested that at the primary school level students should master the
principles and skills of numeracy, measurement and the relationship between space
and shape (Amissah, 1998).
Science education in Ghana schools is not as popular as the liberal arts (history,
religion, geography, literature, government, home economics, art and business
courses). Science is rarely taught in the primary grades on the assumption that it
requires special materials and equipment to teach unlike teaching mathematics.
Where taught, it is hardly organized with any specific focus. Official rhetoric for
science education falls short of concrete goals and is more flamboyant about
promoting integrated science and the use of information and communication
technology in primary and secondary schools (Ghana Government, 2003; 2007;
Baiden-Amissah, 2006). Even in secondary schools, few students opt to take
science courses and those who do only a small fraction make the passing grade
(Muwanga-Zake, 2001; Vermaak & Bradley, 2003). Comparatively, mathematics
education has received more attention from the Ghanaian education authorities
than science education has received. Ghana does not have any national goals for
science education in primary or secondary schools. As a result, science education
in Ghanaian schools is in a state of crisis as much as its counterpart in South Africa
(Muwanga-Zake, 2001). We use the term crisis here to refer to the lack of policy
framework, coordination and direction for science education in Ghanaian schools.
The crisis of science education in Ghana has been attributed to shortage of
qualified science teachers, lack of textbooks and equipment and low government
support (Cartlidge, 2005).
With respect to mathematics education, a Ghanaian researcher has suggested the
following goals for primary and junior secondary school:
To help the child to explore and understand the world around them;
To help the child to compare and contrast objectives;
To help the child to acquire the technique of problem-solving; and
To help the child to develop his logical thought process (Adetunde 2007, p.340).
While these goals of school mathematics look good they are general and lack
specificity. They are also not linked to any challenges or problems confronting
Ghanaian society now or in the future. Nor are they linked to any specific future
society that Ghanaians have envisaged for themselves.
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From our perspective, the purposes of teaching and learning mathematics from
Kindergarten to senior secondary school should be linked to the national goals of
education in order to make it relevant and effective. The purposes of mathematics
education should include the following:
To apply mathematics to all sectors of our society such as agriculture,
transportation, budgeting, construction of houses, roads, bridges and barns,
design of tools and appliances and in defence of the country;
Develop mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills and apply these
skills to formulate and solve new and emerging problems in our society;
To identify and understand the relationships among mathematical ideas and
between mathematics and other school subjects;
To develop positive attitude toward mathematics as a key to decision-making,
technological imagination and problem-solving in our society;
To understand and appreciate how mathematics is used for counting, measuring,
locating, playing games, designing of tools and appliances and explaining
phenomenon; and
Develop skills to reason logically, conduct investigation, data collection, test
hypotheses and to learn cooperatively and independently the traditions and
customs of our society.
These purposes of mathematics education are relevant to the national collective
wish to improve Ghanaian conditions of life: to produce adequate food to feed
themselves, roofs over their heads and enough clothes for the people. In addition,
the goals are connected to the socio-cultural and physical environment of the
student. In fact, quality education has been conceptualized as responsiveness to the
needs of students and their communities and relevant to their physical and cultural
environment (UNESCO, 2002, 2008). Those purposes of mathematics education
are also economical to attain because they do not require any massive infusion of
additional financial resources into education. It requires changes in teaching
pedagogy, creativity, development of new curriculum and commitment on the part
of teachers and the central and local education authorities. Certainly, pre-service
and serving teachers would need professional development on how to integrate
those goals into teaching, learning and assessment but these costs are not expected
to be excessive.
Science education in Ghanaian primary and secondary schools, as we have
stressed, is in much worse state relative to mathematics education. Yet science
education has a most important role to play in the development of agriculture,
food preservation, nutrition, sanitation, disease discovery and prevention,
information processing, transportation and communication. We support the
argument that the goals of science education in Ghanaian schools should be
linked to the socio-cultural environment of the student in order to make it
relevant and effective (Walberg, 1991; African Union, 2006). This external
perspective is concerned with what is being taught in science education in
relation to the cultural context of students and their communities. This is in sharp
contrast with the internal perspective that focuses on the topics to be taught in
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science (Cobern, 1996). The following are our suggested national goals for
science education in Ghana:
To understand science concepts, principles, processes; and inculcate in students
the spirits of curiosity, inquiry, questioning and the search for data;
To acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes for transforming natural resources
into usable products, improving traditional technologies, inventing appropriate
technologies and adapting foreign technologies into local conditions;
Utilize scientific knowledge to transform the human environment to make it safe
and livable, for disease discovery and prevention and for better health and
nutrition;
To design experiments, investigation and research (observation, measurement,
reflection, data collection and testing) to understand phenomena occurring in the
human and natural environment;
To be able to engage in public discussions, discourses and debates relating
science to issues, problems and challenges;
To understand and identify moral and ethical issues surrounding the application
of science and make decisions and judgments accordingly; and
To make personal and public decisions based on verifiable data.
The effectiveness of these science goals can be viewed in terms of justifying
science as part of the school curriculum. Students who attain these goals would
realize the relevance of their education and their ability to contribute to the wellbeing of Ghanaians. This situation should be contrasted with the current situation
in which the entire country depends on the largesse and advice of external
institutions and individuals in Euro-America. In addition, the relevance of those
goals is that Ghana is abound in a variety of natural resources and that science
should be applied to develop those resource for the use of Ghanaians (Goldberg,
1998). It may be asked, how could mathematics and science education have
anything to do with those goals? We know that mathematics could be a hand
maiden for young people to refine or enhance many of Ghanaian cultural rituals
and practices and adapt foreign or develop technologies to fit local conditions.
Counting, measuring, navigating and designing, for instance, are embedded in
every aspects of Ghanaian society. For example, how do Ghanaian farmers
navigate their way through thick forests or grasslands? How could mathematics
be used to enhance the effectiveness of navigation in Ghana? How could science
and mathematics assist to improve the design of traditional technologies such as
the extraction of wine from palm trees, brewing of pitoix, production of garix and
alataxi soap? The examples are too numerous for us to enumerate here. Effective
mathematics education could assist the development of the individual
technological imagination, which facilitates invention, innovation and creativity
(Skovsmose, 2010). Skovsmose (2010) refers to technology as any form of
design and construction (e.g. machines, tools and processes), decision-making
and organization. We share these conceptions with Skovsmose. Certainly, Ghana
needs an education system that will equip its burgeoning young population with
competencies for technological development, for competition in the
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technological world and for developing its resources at the highest level of
efficiency (Ghana Ministry of Education, 2004). And mathematics and science
education has a critical and indispensable role to play in that development
targets.
We believe that Ghanaian youth are capable of developing technological and
scientific imagination, given an effective mathematics and science education
environment: an environment that develops student mathematical proficiency to
understand the limitless possibilities of mathematical and scientific applications in
Ghanaian society and how mathematics and science can be used to solve the
myriad problems confronting the Ghanaian society. Nevertheless, Ghanaian youth
cannot develop such technological imagination if mathematics and science
education continues to be taught as merely a regurgitation of rules and procedures
without understanding the underlying logic or ontological rationality. As well, any
transformation of Ghanaian society could not take place when mathematics and
science education is disconnected from the socio-cultural environment of the
student.
Our position is that since mathematics and science was part of the colonial
school curriculum it has been accepted as good for schooling after political
independence. Even where the contents of the school mathematics curriculum are
changed, which rarely happens, the influence comes from one of the international
agencies rather than within the country. Sometimes the government may hire a
foreign consultant, as it happened after the overthrow of the Nkrumahs
government, to design new mathematics curricula for Ghanaian schools. The
problem with this approach is that the resulting school mathematics curricula are
general and as we have observed, they merely mimic the mathematics curricula of
other countries whose national developmental problems and aspirations are totally
different from those of Ghana.
The question, of why teach mathematics and science is crucial for three main
reasons. First and foremost, the answers to the question would influence the
content of school mathematics and science curricula that teachers will be
expected to teach in schools and which students will also be expected to learn.
Because mathematics is an open concept and is subject to limitless possibilities
and classifications (Skovsmose, 2010), having well-established reasons for
teaching it gives it a focus. Second, the answers to the question would also shape
considerably the mathematics and science pedagogy that will be used in
Ghanaian schools. Such specific goals of mathematics and science education
would be used to prepare teachers in teacher-education institutions and for
assessing the effectiveness of teaching and learning. As Schoenfeld (1992)
rightly put it:
Goals for mathematics instruction [education] depend on ones
conceptualization of what mathematics is, and what it means to understand
mathematics. Such conceptualizations vary widely. At one end of the
spectrum, mathematical knowledge is seen as a body of facts and procedures
dealing with quantities, magnitudes, and forms, and relationships among
them; knowing mathematics is seen as having mastered these facts and
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procedures. At the other end of the spectrum, mathematics is conceptualized

as the science of patterns, an (almost) empirical discipline closely akin to
the sciences in its emphasis on pattern-seeking on the basis of empirical
evidence (pp.343).
Third, the answers to that question would provide students a greater motivation
for learning mathematics other than merely passing examinations and allowing
successful students to enroll in post-secondary education programmes.
MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING AS RULES/ PROCEDURES
Historically, the traditional teaching and learning of mathematics since the time
of British colonialism in Ghana has been characterized by an extreme focus on
rote memorization and parroting of procedures with little or no understanding of
the associated concepts that underlie them. Mereku et al., (2005) noted that the
teaching of mathematics in Ghanaian primary schools focused on computation
skills, learning of formulas, rote practice of procedures and teaching as telling.
They also reported that in the 2003 Third International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS) which Ghanaian junior secondary students (JSS 2)
participated, the students were able to answer mathematics questions testing
knowledge of facts and procedures rather than those asking for application of
concepts, solutions to non-routine problems or mathematical reasoning. Again,
Mereku (2003) reported that in a survey of mathematics teaching in Ghana at
the primary school level, 96% of the teacher respondents stated that they have
never encouraged students to solve problems using their own strategies or
methods; 79% of the respondents admitted that they often used teaching
methods that do not encourage discussion in the classroom; and only 15% of the
respondents often used teaching approaches that promote conceptual
understanding.
Consequently, mathematics teaching in Ghanaian schools is entirely
transmission of procedures and rules to the student. And the students
responsibility is to pay attention and regurgitate what the teacher is transmitting to
him or her. Such procedure-based, didactic mathematics pedagogy hinders the
student from developing mathematical proficiency needed for attaining any of the
mathematics education goals we have suggested in this chapter. For students to be
able to formulate and solve problems in transportation, for instance, they require
deeper understanding of what they are trying to do and demonstrate flexibility in
thinking.
In effect, mathematics proficiency in Ghanaian schools is seen as possessing a
corpus of facts and procedures and applying them when asked. In accordance with
this perspective, students are mostly concerned with memorizing mathematics
procedures and recalling them during examinations or tests. Teachers, on the other
hand, encourage students to memorize formulas because they teach with little
explanations of the underlying meanings of mathematical concepts and procedures.
In other words, teachers hardly engage their students in mathematical concept
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development let alone the various contexts in which those concepts are applicable.
Formulas are precious to Ghanaian mathematics teachers; to them knowing
mathematics is equal in effect to knowing formulas. Therefore, the usual practice is
that teachers do not give out formula sheets for examinations and tests because that
will give students an undue advantage to pass the examination. On the otherhand,
what is the use of mathematical formulas or algorithms if students have no or little
theoretical or practical understanding of why they work and in what situations they
do not work? The illustration below in table 1 is a classical example of an
algorithm that the average Ghanaian student has been uncritically taught and
memorized. It shows an instrumental understanding of mathematics (Skemp, 1978:
Beswick, 2005).
Question1: 10,000 old Ghana cedis equal 1 Ghana new cedi.
How much is 2,000,000 old cedis in terms of the new cedi?
Solution: Using the if more less divides; if less more divides algorithm:
10,000 old cedis = 1 new cedi
It is more, so less divides, therefore
2, 000, 000 x 1
! 200 new cedis
2,000,000 old cedis =
10, 000
Question 2: Two people can dig a 3-metre hole in 1.5 hours. Using the same tools
and working at the same rate per person, how long will it take 4 people to dig the
same hole?
Solution: Using the if more less divides; if less more divides algorithm
Time for 2 people = 1.5 hours
It is more, so less divides, therefore
1.5 x 4
! 3 hours . This is wrong.
Time for 4 people =
2
Correct Solution: Using the if more less divides and if less more divides
Time for 2 people = 1.5 hours
It is less, so more divides, therefore
1.5 x 2
Time for 4 people =
! 0.75 hours .
4
Comment: This rule is popular in Ghana schools but it has so many defects.
Among them are: i) It is very easy to misapply it, as shown by the first solution
to question 2; ii) It does not give any insight of the underlying logic behind such
problems; iii) It robs students of the chance to model such questions by
mathematical equations; hence, the chance to apply knowledge from other areas of
mathematics to solve such questions; iv) Such rules can only handle very simple
problems.
Figure 1. Instrumental Understanding of Mathematics Procedure.
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The if more less divide shows an instrumental understanding of

proportionality and does not help students to develop mathematical proficiency.
Instrumental mathematics pedagogy cannot equip students with skills and
knowledge necessary for achieving any of the mathematics goals we have
suggested for primary and secondary schools. However, this has persisted
throughout the years partly because since Ghana attained political independence
education policy-makers have failed to set-up clear goals for mathematics
education. Clear national mathematics goals would provide direction; help the
development of relevant curriculum, effective teaching pedagogy and
appropriate assessment. General education goals such as poverty reduction,
increased literacy and promoting socio-economic development of Ghana are so
vague that they cannot provide any guidelines for mathematics education in
Ghana.
A PORTRAIT OF GHANAIAN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE CLASSROOM
Pedagogy of mathematics education and assessment of mathematics learning

have followed consistently definitive patterns established in the British colonial
schools. Again, we are stressing that this is because of the absence of precise
mathematics education goals. The following is a typical or average description of
a mathematics classroom in Ghanaian schools. First, the teachers role is to
provide a step-by-step explanations verbally and demonstration of each
procedure/rule regarding a mathematical concept using a chalkboard. The teacher
does this by standing in front of the classroom with the official textbook in hand
or on his or her table and makes frequent reference to it. The teacher speaks
throughout the lesson and the students listen attentively and silently. In that way,
the teacher commands and controls the classroom, by pacing the lecture to the
desired speed and by making certain that students are paying attention. After the
explanation and demonstration, the teacher asks the students: Do you
understand? Usually there is silence, which means that the students have either
understood the lesson or have forgotten conceptual or ontological questions they
had during the lecture. Where a student gathers courage or remembers the
question he/she wanted to ask, the teacher repeats the procedure/rules in the same
step-by-step manner as he/she did in the exposition. The teacher hardly leaves
any room for further questioning and in most cases discourages any creativity on
the part of the student. The teacher leaves the demonstrated examples on the
chalkboard for student reference or asks students to copy them into their
notebooks.
Secondly, after the exposition or lecture, the teacher assigns exercises from
the official mathematics textbook to the students in order to provide them with
adequate opportunities to practice the procedures/rules. The teacher offers
corrective support to the students, where necessary, to ensure that they follow the
procedures/rules he or she had demonstrated! Thirdly, the official textbook is
supreme in the mathematics classroom. Everything is taken from the textbook
and anything outside of the textbook is excluded from the lesson. All the
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procedures/ rules and examples the teacher has explained verbally and
demonstrated on the chalkboard are taken exclusively from the textbook; so are
the answers to all the mathematics exercises assigned to the students. Finally, the
teacher gives out a test to the students at the end of the school term to find out
how many of the procedures/rules they can remember and practice.
Science classrooms in Ghanaian schools typically follow the same patterns as
the mathematics classrooms: (1) Teacher transmission of science knowledge as
immutable and textbook domination, (2) Note-giving and note taking, (3)
Excessive memorization of facts, procedures and formulas, (4) Lack of practical
work and (5) Poor understanding of scientific methods and concepts (Vermaak
and Bradley, 2003). Even where the teacher adds practical or experimental
activities their purposes are to enable students to clarify theories they have
learned rather than to challenge or question them. As well, such activities are not
for students to explore problems of their interests and find solutions to them; nor
are they for finding facts and arriving at new principles (Ghartey-Ampiah et al.,
2004). In other words, science education like mathematics education has
practically nothing to do with the problems and challenges facing Ghanaian
society.
So what is wrong with those typical Ghanaian mathematics and science
classrooms? From our perspective, many things are wrong with these
classrooms. First, most students find it difficult to remember all the steps when
they are doing their mathematics or science assignments. Accordingly, some
students are compelled to memorize the procedures/rules and try to match them
to similar problems during the class assignments. Indeed, students gain no
understanding of what they are doing or why they are doing it. Second, Science
education offered in Ghanaian schools is a cultural product imported from EuroAmerica. Therefore, it bears the culture of the context in which it originated. As
Wilson (1981) pointed out: There is a growing awareness that, for science
education to be effective it must take much more of the explicit account of the
cultural context of the society which provides its setting and whose needs it
exists to serve (p.297). Students need opportunities to make sense of what they
are learning rather than being compelled to memorize facts, formulas and
procedures, which have little meaning to them. In fact, rote memorization of
knowledge does not involve any sense-making process, so students easily forget
what they have memorized. Furthermore, transmission of science facts as
immutable knowledge is contrary to science as is understood as tentative,
empirically-based and part-product of human inference, creativity and
imagination (Parker et al., 2008).
Third, the teacher teaches the procedures/rules, students only receive the end
products and not the processes leading to the end products. This is the lecture
approach to teaching, which has the support of many African teachers as the most
effective way to cover the curriculum (Serbessa, 2006). In the lecture approach,
students are denied the opportunity for participation in the lesson at the beginning,
to think, communicate, discuss and to share their thoughts, experiences and
understandings on the lesson with the teacher and their peers. In short, students are
118
deprived the opportunity to participate meaningfully in knowledge construction.

Because students are denied the opportunities to share in the joy of discovery (or
development of knowledge) and to understand and appreciate the beauty of the
process, they develop an aversion for mathematics and science as irrelevant, boring
school subjects (Ewing, 2004).
Fourth, we are not opposed to the use of textbooks in mathematics teaching and
learning, but we are opposed to the use of textbooks as the only source of teaching
and learning mathematics and science (Smith, 1996). The Ghanaian social and
cultural environment provides viable sources for teaching and learning either
mathematics or science. Ghanaian activities such as basket weaving as well
traditional buildings, art and craft offer powerful insights into geometry. Food
preservation methods should also provide insights into chemistry. We are rather
opposed to the use of textbooks that are regarded as the de facto mathematics and
science programmes rather as one of the resources for teaching and learning
mathematics.
Fifth, the official textbook replaces the teacher in that the teacher indirectly
shows that the textbook author possesses more mathematics or science expertise
than they possess. Therefore, either the teacher or students should not have any
questions, suggestions or comments on the procedure/rules the author has given
in the textbook. We agree with Love and Pimm (1996) that the teacher should
act as a mediator between the student and the text, providing an interpretation
of the text that is based not only on her [the teachers] constructions of
the intention of the author, but on her accumulated experience of teaching
(p.398).
Sixth, mathematics and science is taught from the textbook or according to
topics suggested in the curriculum. That is, the teacher presentations along with the
learning activities are independent of the social and cultural contexts of the
students (Muwanga, 2007). We are ardent supporters of a student-centred
mathematics and science pedagogy that links classroom lessons to the student life
interests, concerns, challenges and aspirations and those of their communities (The
World Bank, 2007).
Finally, in such classrooms the teacher mandates standardization of procedures
and formulas to the extent that nothing apart from the textbook or teacher
approved procedures or facts are acceptable. Consequently, it is impossible for
students to develop thinking capacity for analysis, creativity and innovation. We
support a science or mathematics pedagogy that allows students to use their own
methods, ideas or strategies to solve problems provided they justify them. A
researcher has recently suggested that standardization in the classroom stifles
creativity, innovation and exploration (Sahlberg, 2007). To nurture student
mathematical or scientific creativity and curiosity, the teacher should accept and
encourage a range of strategies for solving mathematics problems and compel
students to share their reasoning with their teachers or peers. Figure 2 illustrates
such pedagogy:
119
Question: Solve for x : x 2 2 x = 1

Students used the following strategies to do the task:
Learner 1:
x ! 1, because if x 2 2 x ! 1, then x 2 ! 2 x 1 and x ! 2 x 1 .
x can 't be 0, because we get 0 = 1. x can 't be negative because we get the
square root of a negative. x ! 1 works because we get 1=1 and no other number
bigger than 1 works.
Learner 2:
x = 1, because if x2 2x = 1, then x(x 2) = 1
and so x = 1 or x 2 = 1, which leaves us with
x = 1 (because x = 1 does not hold)
Learner 3:
x ! 1, because if
x 2 2 x ! 1, then x 2 2 x 1 ! 0
and this factorizes to get ( x 1)( x 1) ! 0; so x ! 1.
Learner 4:
x ! 1. I drew the graphs of y ! 1 and
y ! x 2 2 x.
They intersect only at one place, at x ! 1.
Learner 5:
x ! 1. I substituted a range of values in the equation and 1 is the only
one that works.
Figure 2. Multiple Solutions for a Mathematics Question.

(Adler and Davis, 2006, p. 273).
In the above example given in Figure 2, the mathematics teacher allowed the
students to explore the meaning of the equation from their own creative and
innovative understanding rather than insisting rigidly on the use of the quadratic
formula or factoring techniques. As such the freedom for creativity and
innovation inspired learner 1 to use reasoning; learners 2 and 3 used factoring
techniques; learner 4 used graphing and learner 5 substitution procedures. It is
not the use of graphing and substitution procedures that make learners 4 and 5
solutions creative, but their deeper understanding that graphing and substitution
methods are equally a solution tool for the equation. Creativity may be
conceptualized in different ways but we view it as a skill, an ability to make
unforeseen connections and to generate new and appropriate ideas (Ferrari et
al., 2009, p.iii). Innovation may also be seen as the application of new or
existing ideas to benefit a field such as mathematics learning. It is noteworthy
that creativity and innovation as abilities could be fostered or hindered by a
teaching pedagogy. We want to emphasize that without creativity and
innovative mathematics and science education it is impossible for Ghanaians or
Africans to solve the myriad problems of poverty, perennial hunger,
120
environmental degradation, poor health and political instability confronting

them.
CONCLUSION
The central argument in this chapter is that without clearly defined goals and goals
commitment for mathematics and science education at the primary and secondary
schools in Ghana, it is increasingly difficult to
Measure the quality of mathematics and science education at that level. The fact
is that education quality is an intrinsic characteristic that expresses the
relationship between goals and performance. Without goals or standards it is
impossible to talk about education quality generally and mathematics and
science education particularly;
Develop a focus and relevant curriculum, let alone appropriate teaching
pedagogy that can be used to motivate and help students to learn and apply
mathematics and science; and
Design effective assessment practices and tools that can be used to measure
performance and ensure that the goals have been attained or are being attained;
and
Locate resources to develop national capacity for technological and scientific
progress.
The lack of clearly defined and articulated mathematics and science education
goals for primary and secondary schools in Ghana has contributed significantly
to the low visibility of mathematics and science among school subjects.
However, a well-defined school mathematics and science education research
agenda initiated and led by Ghanaian universities will give some visibility and
prominence to mathematics and science education in Ghana. In particular, how
mathematics and science was used in the construction of houses, barns, huts,
navigation, trading, food preservation, herbal therapies and design of tools are
great areas of research. Historians have documented sites of Akan foundries for
gold, iron and steel smelting (Abraham, 1962). This is an interesting research
project to investigate how these metals, especially iron and steel, were smelted
and molded into different farming and war implements. Indeed local initiative is
needed for developing effective and relevant science school science programmes
(Walberg, 1991).
Other areas of research whose results could enhance mathematics and science
education include mathematics of Edwasoxii and how Ghanaians dealt with issues
of quantity, measurement and design before colonization. Further, research into
traditional methods of producing peanut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil and shea
butter is a great project. These research projects are likely to give a boost for the
study of mathematics and science in Ghana. They could also contribute to
eliminate the schism between school science and that of the larger society.
Furthermore, the goals of mathematics and science education that we have
121
suggested in this chapter should be part of teacher education curriculum and

evaluative criteria for the performance of pre-service teachers.
This way, the goals will have a high probability of being sustained and
implemented in classrooms.
NOTES
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
xi
xii
Primary, secondary, technical/vocational schools

Teaching pedagogy is viewed as approaches to teaching that includes texts, curriculum and
organization of the classroom, teacher-students interaction, student-student interaction, learning
activities and assessment practices.
This is an Akan phrase that roughly translates into we have been shortchanged. Akan is the largest
linguistic group in Ghana.
Stakeholders of Ghana school education are teachers, masters, headteachers/headmasters,
parents/guardians, government, ministry of education/Ghana Education Services, students and others
interested in child/youth welfare. The word master is used specifically for a secondary school
teacher.
SMART is the acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant and time-based goals.
We used the term post-colonial to refer to the conditions and challenges of building a new society
after symbolic political independence was attained. It does not mean that colonialism had come to an
end with the attainment of symbolic political independence.
West African Examination Council Website: http://www.ghanawaec.org/
Ghana Government website: http://www.ghana.gov.gh
Pito is traditionally brewed beer mostly in the northern part of Ghana. It follows all the processes of
beer brewing, namely mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, conditioning and filtering.
Gari is traditional Ghanaian foodstuff made from cassava. It could be eaten with beans, stew, or
soup. We believe that its labour-intensive production process should be modernized to make it more
efficient in terms of labour hours and rates of production.
Alata soap is also a traditionally made soap for bathing, washing and laundry. Its invention history
dates to pre-colonial times.
This is an Akan word for market, a place specifically designed for buying foods stuffs, clothes and
footwear.
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CULTURE, IDENTITY AND SCIENCE IN AFRICAN

EDUCATION
THE RELEVANCE OF LOCAL CULTURAL RESOURCE KNOWLEDGE
INTRODUCTION
In many ways this paper is taking an unconventional approach to understanding

science and science education. The essay is about subverting scientism as a
framework for and of knowledge production. It engages science not as
methodological tool, but rather, as a frame of cultural reference, a way to raise
broader existential questions about self, group, culture, history and identity and
how we make sense of the connections of people to their social and natural worlds.
It argues that local cultural knowledge systems have embedded ways of thinking
that regulate peoples everyday interactions, social relations and political actions
guided by rich intellectual traditions of history, culture, polity and sociality.
Science is primarily seen as connected to culture, values and ideas about human
existence, social relations and a worldsense of interconnections of self, group and
community. As Gueye (1995) pointed out a long time ago writing in the context of
Africa, there is a specific cultural understanding in African communities that is
....centred around a particular conception of the world which assigns the human
being a specific role, around a certain representation of time and space which
structures mentalities and behaviours.... (p. 11). Such knowledge is science. It is
knowledge that is central to understanding the African human condition and
schooling and education has to come to terms with such ways of knowing in the
teaching of school science. A transformed African education must be informed by
local understandings of the complex linkages between natural, spiritual, social,
cultural, political and economic forces of society. Such recognition gives
intellectual agency to African peoples as agents in the construction of our own
knowledges.
Scientism as produced through positivism, declared that all knowledge were to
be formulated through strict, rigid research methods as determined through the
natural sciences, positing in a sense, objective, neutral, bias free knowledge.
Knowledge was understood as distinct and dichotomized from the
spiritual/metaphysical ways of coming to know and understanding ones lived
experiences. It is argued the only knowledge that has any truth to meaning is
knowledge that can be validated through empiricism. That is to say, the universe is
governed through ontological set of laws which can be retrieved through
experimentation and can then be applied as axiomatic principles in order to
GEORGE J. SEFA. DEI
understand our lived social environment. Hence, social science research became
very much governed by this supposedly universal set of laws. Scientism then is
very much singular in its methodological production of knowledge and invariably
works to ontologically counter the relevance of local cultural resource
knowledging. Yet the claim for African Indigeneity is about multiple cultural ways
of knowing, for African Indigeneity speaks through the inter-subjective local of the
human. Notably, intersubjectivity becomes constituted through the primacy of
being and the ensuing socio-cultural interaction within ones lived social
environment, - a location counter to that posited through scientism which claims
the primacy of being as distinct, value-free, objective and autonomous from the
social. My challenge to scientism begins with the epistemological question of
where does knowledge reside and what are the conditions of its existence? I am
suggesting that these conditions are immanent within the local cultural resources of
African Indigeneity. Yet, social science is rooted within cultural ways of knowing,
such that I am interested in the ways in which coming to make meaning are present
beyond the expert text and instead to the incommensurable spaces of culture.
Purcell (1998) long ago noted there is a culture of science that is arguably
unique to Western societies. Western knowledge is founded on a particular
criterion of science that is too abstracted from any specific cultural genesis to be
considered Indigenous today. By engaging culture as science and integrating
nature as science in the discussion, this paper accentuates the importance and
implications of local cultural knowings as relevant in the transformation of African
schooling. I take the discursive position that there is the power of intellectual ideas
bringing about educational change. A re-visioning African education may start
with the re-conceptualization of schooling, its purpose and objectives. It may also
include placing some emphasis on the promotion of the self, group and community
identities of young learners in ways that are foregrounded in culture, history and
politics. The importance of education for development rests more than an emphasis
on teaching science, mathematics and technology. Teaching and learning about the
self, personhood and the group may be equally important in terms of the particular
learner education is hoping to create. Notwithstanding good intentions of schools,
administrators, educators and policy makers a good number of African parents still
wonder why we still have to contend with educational failures. This is not to say
there are no educational successes to be proud of. However, I am not the only to
struggle with the question and Africa and Africans are not alone. There is a need
for re-visioning African education such that contemporary learners understand the
self and group identities and the importance of social discipline and responsibility.
I will maintain that it is important for African learners today to be steeped in a
critical understanding and engagement of local/Indigenous knowledge, community
traditions, histories and social mores in order to strengthen our collective African
identities.
There are pertinent questions to ponder over: How do we create spaces for the
study of African Indigenous knowledges in our schools that promote notions of
self, group, community, identity and culture? How can such knowledge be
gathered, interpreted and theorized for the education of the contemporary African
128
CULTURE, IDENTITY AND SCIENCE IN AFRICAN EDUCATION
learner? How is local cultural knowledge, histories and identities to be read,

understood and taken up in our schools official and unofficial curricula,
pedagogies and classroom instructional forms? How do we posit a counter
approach to critical African-centred education grounded in Indigenous perspectives
that anchor the spiritual at the base of the educational foundation? And, what
does it mean to claim nature as science? As we seek to create genuine educational
options for African, perhaps we can look into our cultures, histories and reclaim the
power of local/Indigenous teachings that build the moral fabric and character of the
contemporary learner and move education beyond the mere acquisition of skills.
The power of an intellectual idea is how well it is executed to achieve the
intended results in the long run. Change is never instant. There are growing pains
and without the support of community of learners and a shift in the institutionalized
mindset which maintains the status quo, no change can be expected. There are also
no guarantees that the change one hopes for will be what is eventually achieved.
This is to say that while we can predict change, we cannot say what it will look
like. With collective dedication and effort however, we can at least all hold our
heads high that we tried despite all obstacles and resistances. Educational success
must be seen in how well a strong foundation is built that can continue to educate
our children in the core African-centred principles that ensure the development of
more holistic learners and worldviews. These principles will guide the orientation
and content of the curriculum as well as its delivery (pedagogy and instruction).
Africa is and should be a central reference point in school teachings but Africa is
more than a physical space. We must theorize African broadly and beyond a fixed
space/point to include complex and multiple knowledge, cultures, histories and
identities. In other words, we want students to learn with a curriculum content that
is oriented towards these ideas and principles enshrined in African cultural values
and social experience; for example, learners steeped in the ideas of building strong
character, moral responsibility, creating communities and diverse community of
learners through the practice of the idea of schooling as community. Classroom
teachings and curriculum content could cultivate a sense of social responsibility on
the part of the learner to recognize the obligation to self, peers, community and
nation.
Curriculum could provide a broad understanding of history and the lessons of
such histories as the contributions and achievements in science, technology, social
studies, literature, humanities and the arts, as well as struggles of a people which
have been part of the totality of their lived experiences. The central place of
culture, science and pedagogy in education is recognized in terms of grounding the
learner in the rich intellectual traditions of a people expressed and conveyed in
science, mathematics, technology, arts and literature. The youth will appreciate and
work with a sort of spiritual ontology that stresses and values the wholeness and
interrelationships of self and communities; and a connection of the body, mind and
soul in the education of the learner. In such a context, schooling and education
move beyond the material and physical acquisition of knowledge and skills, to
engage the mental and spiritual aspects of self and community - appreciating that
129
GEORGE J. SEFA. DEI
learning/schooling and education have deep emotional, spiritual and psychological

dimensions.
There is a link between personal and collective identities and schooling and
knowledge. Who we are, our complex histories and identities (including racial,
ethnic, class, gender, sexual and [dis]ability identities) implicate and inform
schooling and the learning process to produce educational outcomes. A revisioned
African-centred schooling calls for education to place learners [their histories,
experiences, cultures and knowledges] at the centre of their education. Schooling
must highlight the centrality of culture to knowledge production (pedagogy) and
emphasize the importance of reaffirming and reinforcing the myriad identities of
youth. We need schools, educators and learners to work concretely with principles
of community, solidarity, social responsibility, mutual interdependence, collective
histories and spiritual learning. Classroom teachings need to emphasize the self as
well as collective racial, ethnic, cultural, gender and sexuality based pride of
learners. It is towards these larger goals that we must turn our attention in the
revisioning of African schooling and education for today and tomorrow. The
conceptual framework for understanding the practical task is to begin to engage
notions of African Indigeneity, identity and the questions of social discipline and
responsibility of the learner.
THE QUESTION OF AFRICAN INDIGENEITY
The question of how Indigenous is the African today is irrelevant and can only be
asked by someone who either seeks exclusive claim to Indigenous knowledge or
has lost their own Indigenity and has no way of reclaiming due to the imposition of
Euro-colonial knowledge. The challenge of identifying with Indigenous struggles
everywhere requires that all Indigenous communities learn from each other. Far too
often the need to respect local/traditional/Indigenous knowledge has been onesided in a way that denies what other peoples have to offer to multiple ways of
knowing. My assertion is not intended to mean all knowledges are the same. I do
believe in [and have written extensively on] the idea of multiple and collaborative
dimensions of knowledges.
There is always a process of self and group discovery and recovery of
knowledges. It is through a critical awareness of such processes recovery/rediscovery that a transformative project of solidarity rests. The urgency of building
such solidarities becomes clearer as we witness the extent of ongoing
institutionalized processes that have historically sustained and reinforced colonial
and imperial relations and patterns. Therefore, as colonized and resistant bodies we
must always search for creative [including Indigenous] ways of solidarity building
that is informed by a historical and political consciousness of our human condition
and social existence. For example, we must explore the theoretical, epistemological
and methodological approaches to community building not simply as tools or
methods but as ways of understanding ourselves and each other.
In meeting such challenges, I would venture to argue that certain questions are
important. For example, what does it mean to create solidarities? What does it
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mean to share authority? There is an Indigenous/Aboriginal proverb to the effect

that the honour of one is the honour of all. In other words, to honour one is to
honour all. In my years trying to engage other Indigenous ways of knowing, I have
learnt that to come into an Aboriginal circle of knowledge sharing is more than an
exchange of ideas. The circle is not merely a physical space. It is a space of
spiritual, mental, emotional, material and physical engagement and transformation.
It is a space that calls for ethics, social responsibility and care. After all, the
pedagogy of the Indigene is about a holistic education of mind, body and soul. It
becomes impossible to separate the mind, intellect soul and the spirit. Such
fragmentation of the self is a physical and emotional injury to oneself and the
community. Furthermore, a community must essentially be a spiritual community.
To create a community of learners as part of solidarity making and re-making
there must be a place to acknowledge our spiritualities.
Every learner has a spirit and for this important reason education cannot sideline
the spiritual. Educators can be urged to centre spirituality in our academic lives.
Spirituality is about practice and to respect spirituality is to acknowledge its
transformative potential. As educators we must make our own spiritual identities
and that of our learners/students visible. Educators must assist young learners to
work with a critical spiritual vocabulary that allows for reading the sacred in our
everyday lives.
Today most post-modernists are loathe to claim the shifting grounds of our
identities, while I agree I also acknowledge a permanence to our identities in the
sense that we never lose our spirits, souls and bodies in the search for knowledge
about ourselves, histories and heritage. These always remain with us when we
begin to speak of who we are as African peoples. The act of memory and
remembering our histories and ancestries is to help us become whole persons with
a connection to a past, present and future. For Indigenous peoples, such awareness
can only strengthen our resistances to oppression, domination and colonizing
projects. Such awareness also becomes a decolonizing project that opens us to acts
of resistance in everyday practice.
There is a relation between voice and power. A resisting voice is always about
power and how to subvert power. Coming to voice is about asserting ones own
knowings, intellectual agency and power to define social existence. It is about
authenticating ones experiences and social realities. Of course, I am aware that
different bodies would come to voice differently given the diversity of our histories
and existence. But there is a connection to such histories and existence. In fact,
what is central to such connections and relations is the power of experience,
reflection and memory. Knowing ones voice is also about claiming an epistemic
and epistemological connection to history, culture and identity. We legitimize our
voices by making connections to other experiences and histories. Within this anticolonial prism, claiming the authentic voice is not a dismissal other knowledges/
voices as not authentic. Crucially, it is an assertion that what is authentic bears a
relation to a peoples Indigeneity and histories, as well as ways of knowing about
the society, nature and culture interface. It is about a search for wholeness, a
validation and legitimation of this society, nature and culture nexus anchored in
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Indigenous peoples; systems of thought and practice. In this sense, then, to be

authentic is neither a value judgment nor a claim about ones knowledge being
corrupted or contaminated by foreign/alien ideas and practice.
In claiming a voice, one needs to step outside her/his cultural context and
worldview to appreciate other peoples ways of knowing or bodies of knowledge.
When we engage in this exercise, we also acknowledge the power of multiple
worldsenses (Oyewumi, 1997) as opposed to a worldview. A worldview today
has become about dominant experiences. Colonialism and imperial relations
continue to structure and order worldviews in a hierarchy of knowing. Worldsense
is about a collectivity of knowing and how we come to know about our different,
multiple and yet shared experiences and existence (Oyewumi, 1997). Worldsense
can also be about an epistemic community that shares knowledge about social
oppression and the need to fight for collective justice.
In fact, building solidarity around notions of difference is critical to a
transformative agenda for addressing issues of social injustice. There are necessary
conditions for making, remaking and sustaining such solidarities across race,
gender, class, disability, language, sexuality and religion. Such solidarity building
eschews gendered, racialized and classed essentialisms in favour of connections
and interdependence among peoples. The political strategy for solidarity building
must acknowledge the embedded power relations in all sites and relations of
difference. The making and remaking of solidarities constitutes a collectivising and
unifying project to address mutually shared concerns, dreams and aspirations,
including breaking down power hierarchies and fighting social domination. While,
the conditions for remaking solidarity are going to be different for all, including all
oppressed and colonized peoples, we cannot denied the sites of shared knowledges
and histories. At the same time, there is also recognition of our different
positionings and implications in the Euro-colonial project of subjugating Indigenous
peoples lands and the struggles over self determination.
THE QUESTION OF AFRICAN IDENTITY
I begin this section sounding a brief note of caution. I note the many contentions
around the question of identity and what exactly is meant when it is evoked. I also
acknowledge that posing the question of African identity through a continental lens
provides us with different set of questions and issues for critical analysis than when
the question is viewed through a diasporic lens. Nonetheless these questions,
concerns and issues are intertwined and sometimes inseparable given the fact that
today we speak of the necessity to theorize African beyond its boundaries. I am not
preoccupied with the question of who qualifies to be African. I am more focused
on what claiming African identity means pedagogically and communicatively. For
example how the critical teachings about the national, continental and communal
alliances and linkages of histories, cultures, heritage, language and knowledges
provide us with conduits for understanding of what it means to claim an
Africanness. Despite the different roots and routes we have taken as a people,
African identity evokes some shared and connected histories, experiences and
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knowledges (see also Quayson, 2008). I speak of an instructional understanding of

African identity anchored in local cultural resource knowledge.
As I have argued elsewhere (Dei, 2011) in claiming local cultural resource
knowledge that herald issues of the past, culture, ancestral knowledge, history and
heritage and language, the question of post-colonial identities become relevant. A
number of postcolonial writers (e.g., Gilroy 1993, 2000; Appiah, 1992, 2005; Gates,
1992, 2010; Hall 2005, 2007a, 2007b) have often criticized the evocation of the
past as problematic in its claim of an authentic past. Stuart Halls discussion of
the problems of postcolonial cultural identities (2005, 2007a, 2007b) reinforces
the assertion that reclaiming local cultural knowledge does not mean taking
recourse to a mythic or romanticized past. However, Hall (2005) is rather skeptical
about any attempts to recover an authentic pre-colonial African identity,
undamaged by the experience of colonial dominance and oppression, [as much as
he recognizes that such attempts and its politics may serve as psychological
resources for resistance]. Hall discusses the complexities involved in the
negotiation and the re-invention of postcolonial identities. I share such concerns
to some extent. My point of departure, however, is that the re-assertion of identities
at any time in a peoples history always recognizes the complexities of identity and
the fact that all identities are metaphorically in constant flux. However, I am
gesturing to the importance of claiming African identities as an exercise of
decolonization that recognizes the authenticity of the African voice and human
experience. Such identity is in contrast to that identity which is often constructed
within Euro-American hegemony and ideology. I bring a different meaning to
authentic which is not to be read as pure, unfettered or uncontaminated.
I am engaging the question of African identities from a Fanonian and anticolonial perspective that recognizes the importance of history, culture, place,
language and local [Indigenous] knowledge as conferring and emblematic of
particular identities. Such identities, when constructed from ancestral experience,
history and local cultural resource knowledge, should be seen as authentic and
valid in their own right and yet subjected to interrogations without dismissal. The
construction of such identities accords power, as well as subject intellectual agency
to the colonized body and marginalized voice. The colonial encounter was marked
by resistance and the assertion of the discursive power of the colonized peoples.
The colonial encounter was characterized by a determination to assert local voice
and experience through individual and collective agencies and social action as well
as subjective politics of the colonized subject. Through the Fanonian and anticolonial prism, we come to know and understand embodied Indigenous epistemes
as experienced through the socio-cultural and political field of the African experience
and human condition. The intellectual interest in claiming authenticity rest in the
experience of the African identity as it comes to be historically shaped through the
social conjunctures of the many cultural formations of the African presence.
As pointed out (Dei, 2011b), an understanding the Indigenous African
experience constitutes a form of valid/legitimate knowing. The post-colonial
African identity, if one may be bold to assert, is about relations to particular
histories, cultures, places and identities that also symbolize particular ways of
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knowing. Within the myriad configurations of Euro-modernity, explicating the

Indigenous African presence and experience as sites of knowing entails raising key
highly relevant theoretical and philosophical questions about how we come to
know the African identity. For example, how does Indigenous African culture as a
way of knowing form integrative spaces for the African identity? What are the
responsibilities/consequences/implications for the African voice when the politics
of identification, the politics of identity work to erode the voice of shared colonial
histories? How might we speak about ethnicity, difference and culture and not
dilute the responsibility of speaking about Indigenous African identity? How do
African peoples come to understand their lived social environment? What are the
variable ways in which African peoples form a cultural register to strategically
manoeuvre through their daily interactions? What are the ways in which the
African identity come to intercede with the culture of modernity and simultaneously
dialogue with the culture of African-Indigenous history? Where does knowledge
reside (e.g., in bodies and cultural memories)? What counts as knowledge about a
peoples experience and who constructs such knowledge and how? How do we
come to know and understand such knowledge? To reiterate then, one of the
challenges for contemporary African education is to take culture, history, ancestral
as significant sites of knowledge and information and work with these in the
education of the contemporary African learner.
In effect, the critical teachings of African Indigenous and local cultural
knowledges about self, identity, culture, history and respect and discipline of the
learner can be powerful pedagogic, communicative and instructional moments and
spaces for enhancing schooling and education of the contemporary African learner.
It is maintained that African local cultural resource knowledge points us to
significant confluences and trajectories, as well as constituting fascinating entry
points to understanding the broader issues of the African self, identity, discipline,
community and social responsibility of the learner. In fact, crucial to fashioning a
genuinely African-centred education focused on the search for solutions to
contemporary African problems in a competitive global world is the education of
the contemporary learner in local African cultural values, ideas and norms as the
standing blocks to the making of holistic, responsible, disciplined subject. African
education has to the address the embarrassment of many contemporary learners
either not knowing about their own local cultural teachings and heritage or
disregarding the import of such knowledges. The bafflement that a critical student
encounters in a learner so de-rooted in their own local cultural and communal
teachings and histories must be addressed. What these concerns points us to is
interrogating the value and relevance of informal Indigenous African education as
broadly defined to inculcate the teachings of self, self-worth and discipline in the
learner.
WORKING WITH LOCAL/INDIGENOUS TEACHINGS: A CASE STUDY
In this section I provide accounts from interviews with Ghanaian educators and
students illustrating the value of informal/Indigenous education conveyed in the
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teachings of local cultural knowledge (i.e., local proverbs and traditional teachings
about self respect, discipline, identity, culture and history. An overriding question
is, how might formal education bridge such critical teachings while maintaining
those elements of local culture, traditions and stories that are absolutely worth
passing on to the next generation? In June 2007, I began a study Teaching
Discipline, Respect and Character Education: What Can be Learned from
Schooling in Pluralistic Contexts focusing on the role of African Indigenous
philosophies and local cultural knowledge forms in teaching about respect,
discipline and social responsibility as part of character development among
youth. i A particular interest is how local cultural knowledge -- contained in
proverbs, fables, tales and folklore -- assist in inculcating in all learners notions of
discipline and respect for self-worth, self-esteem and community pride.
Accordingly, the study examined the practices and measures educators, school
administrators, families and communities institute to address forms of youth
discipline and character education and how local Indigenous knowings facilitate
school teachings and learning. The learning objective is to articulate an Indigenous
philosophy for understanding questions of character, social discipline, building
respect for oneself, peers, authority and the wider community that can be relevant
to classroom teaching and learning for youth in the educational system. African
schools, like schools elsewhere, continue to search for more effective ways of
delivering education to a diverse group of learners.ii
The field study [which also took me to Nigeria in 2007 and 2009 for discussions
with local educators] has examined the instructional, pedagogic and communicative
values and challenges in local Indigenous cultural teachings (proverbs) about
[in]discipline and respect for self, peers and authority. In 2007-2008 academic
year, working with graduate assistants from the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) and local research assistants
from Ghana, we conducted interviews with a minimum of twenty (20) Ghanaian
and Nigerian educational theorists and practitioners who have some knowledge of
and experience in the issue of teaching discipline and respect to authority using
local Indigenous philosophies and concepts. From 2007 to 2009, at least a dozen
(12) focus group discussions were held, as well as over eighty-five (85) individual
interviews (i.e., twenty-five (25) educators; twenty (20) Elders/parents and forty
(40) students drawn from the local universities, secondary schools and community
colleges, as well local communities in Ghana and to a small extent, Nigeria) [see
Dei, 2010].
STUDY FINDINGS: SUBJECT NARRATIVES
This section of the paper reports on selected sections of research findings for the
20072009 study that is deemed relevant for discussions in this current paper. I
focus on the idea of creating a discipline learner and the role of local cultural
knowledge systems in helping mould a complete learner for today. Research
accounts presented here are based on subject responses from college educators and
university student-teachers to such questions as: What are local cultural knowings
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embedded in proverbs, songs and folktales? How do these knowings teach about
self respect, discipline, community and authority? How do these knowledges help
build the learners character, sense of self-worth, collective pride as significant
knowledge base for the contemporary youth? The aim was to understand how local
educators and students would connect the received understandings of education
broadly to include learning the society, nature and culture interface as science. The
making of holistic learning may require that educators engage the teaching of
nature as science as part of the education of youth. I have chosen to focus on a
select mix of youth, students and educators narratives that help us to understand
the relationship between self, discipline and culture as building blocks for a young
learner (see also Dei & Simmons, 2011). The narratives also highlight ways of
approaching the education and socialization of the contemporary young African
learners grounded in more critical ways of looking at local culture, traditions,
values, norms and practices as dynamic forms of knowledge to be reclaimed for
positive (solution-oriented) ends.
Proverbs as Local Cultural Teachings about Self Discipline, Respect
and Sense of Community
Ghanaian educators interviewed contend proverbs constitute part of local
Indigenous knowledge systems. They point out that proverbs are organized systems
of thought that reveal deep meanings connected to history, culture, tradition and
societal norms and expectations. Bafoah iii who has been teaching mathematics for
the past six years in a Senior High School has great familiarity with local proverbs.
To him proverbs are wise sayings and they are uttered to show maturity of
thought and a comprehension of social issues. Proverbs also contain advice and
codes of sound moral conduct for youth. As a socializing medium, proverbs show
the transition to adult status and for the Elderly the association with proverbs points
to a higher level of conceptual thinking. Similarly, educator and community
worker, Nana Abrase points to a number of everyday proverbial sayings illustrating
moral values and character teachings for youth:
.[Proverbs teach about] respecting oneself and knowing limits to our
knowing. In this context, it is also said that an elder helps to uproot debt but
does not pay debt. The elder is there to guide the youth provide them with
the knowledge skills and advice that will enable the youth carve their own
future. We also say the one who owns the thing is the one who eats. It is not
the person who is hungry. This means that if it happens that a relative of
your passes away it is the one related to the relative who gets to sit on the
throne and not a visitor.
Proverbs guide youth to good conduct and appropriate behaviour. Proverbs offer
advice and counseling. But the question is, how so these educators understand and
conceptualize discipline? In answering the question, educators offer some
interesting and conventional understanding of discipline. Kofi Yamoah is a physics
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teacher at a Senior High School. He completed the BSc. degree from the University
of Cape Coast a couple of years ago. He comments:
What do I understand by discipline? Well I believe discipline is obeying sets
of rules governing either the school or the society in which you find yourself
in.
Yamoah associates discipline with school rules and regulations and how they
are enforced. Discipline is located within the institution. Failure to comply calls for
punishment, in other words, sanction for breaking rules and regulations. Abana, an
MPhil Human Rights student at the local University of Education works with the
local Ministry of Management Affairs. He shares his understanding of discipline,
which places the onerous on the individual learner/student. At the same time he
links discipline with control:
Well discipline in my understanding is ones ability to take control of himself
in any circumstance such that you dont . You go by certain social norms
that you dont do anything outside the accepted social norms. . [An
undisciplined person].. means that, that persons at a certain time is
different from the accepted norms of whatever society he finds himself.
When asked to speak a bit about what is meant by teaching discipline, Abana
retorts:
Teaching discipline. Teaching discipline is specifically guiding students in a
way such that this is how to appreciate the fact that there is the need to go by
accepted norms and So, it is a systematic way of imparting the norms
of whatever situation in which one finds himself so that the person will
[abide] and go by [what is expected]
Teaching discipline then is about instructing the learner about what is expected of
her or him at school. Abana sees it as a part of school teachings encoded in what a
youth must learn in school. In other words, to expect discipline we must first teach
it to youth. This is important given the severe nature of the problem of discipline in
schools. Similarly, in the interview with Tamipiah, a human rights student at the
University of Education, we pressed the educator about if there was a distinction
between teaching discipline and enforcing discipline:
With teaching discipline, I will say that it is like delivering a service by the
teacher onto the learner. But the enforcing of the discipline is geared towards
correcting the person of the mistakes he or she has committed. Like causing a
blunder and the teacher or instructor is able to give the direction to the learner
in a way that it will not let him or her continue or repeat what he or she has
already done.
So, teaching discipline is about delivering knowledge while enforcing discipline
is about punishment. Amobi, a Fante student and educator who is also doing his
Masters in Human Rights Education at the local university speaks about the
schools and societal responsibility to address the problem of youth discipline:
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Ehm Discipline is putting measures to ensure sanity in a society or the

environment. So the approach towards bringing sanity, ehm peace and I
mean forms or ways or measures that we put in place that will bring about
sanity and cooperation and orderliness in the society.
Schools cannot function in an atmosphere of indiscipline and it is the
responsibility of the school system to ensure that what is expected of learners in
terms of the conduct of school is well communicated. Similarly, Fiifi the Design
teacher adds regarding his understanding of discipline as the responsibility of the
institution:
Mmmm Discipline, per se I think is a matter of making sure students cope
with whatever you want them to do. Say when you pass a law, you make sure
students around you go with it; go according to the law. And if they go
according to the law it means they discipline themselves. They go with the
law. So, anybody who obeys a law disciplines him or herself.
Fiifi places a lot of power in the hands of schools and school authorities.
Nonetheless, he points out that we need not always have to interpret discipline as
imposition from above. Forty-six year old Patiah, a professional teacher with a
bachelors degree in education majoring in English language and also pursuing an
M.Phil programme in Human Rights at the University of Education agrees:
In the first place, I see discipline to be an involved ability to move by the
norms of society; wherever you find yourself, you have to be law abiding.
You dont have to easily offend others; you live by the norms of the society
and in a wider context, in the universities too they call most of their subjects
as disciplines.
So discipline is abiding by societal norms and values, something that is part of
the cultural practices and need not be understood as that which is imposed. Hence
we cannot always already interpret discipline as a form of punishment. It is a way
to come to know social and human relations and allow learners to become involved
as active participants of the community of schooling. But if the distinction between
discipline as enforced and discipline as taught is to hold, we need to ask what are
the processes and pedagogic practices schools have to teach discipline?
Teaching Discipline and What Indigenous Proverbs Offer for such
Character and Moral Education
If and as Foucault encourages, we are thinking through the insurrection of
subjugated knowledges (Foucault, 1980, p. 81), then we must begin in the African
context to talk about proverbs. We know that Indigenous African proverbs have
been with us even before the colonization of knowledging. So to insurrect such
knowledge, is to say, transporting, or importing this body of knowledge to the
classroom text. It is about inclusivity, it is about accepting values, beliefs, customs
and the culture of difference. It is about moving beyond the boundaries (James
1993) of the ethnocentric curricula. It is about dialoguing with oral forms of
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knowledge, the ones colonially installed to the margins, that is, to retrieve and
bring to the classrooms for all bodies, different ways to come to learn what it
means to be socially responsible, to fecund the sense of understanding these
historic moral categories and character classifications, all in the context of civic
education.
Local African peoples have long come to understand these proverbial moments
through an embodiment of knowledge. Take for example, college science student
Kessie, who heralds the importance of proverbs in teaching moral values and
character:
Many proverbs help you to know the values and characters of individuals.
When a proverb is made or when a proverb is said you can understand that it
is trying to say something about a character, so that we students will know
whether, it cushions us or strengthens us.
To her, proverbs are about teaching societal norms and values. Proverbs contain
knowledge that guide learners to appropriate social action. Educators can use
proverbs to strengthen the spiritual and moral will power of young learners.
Proverbs guide youth to critical conduct and appropriate behavior. Proverbs offer
advice and counselling. Educators who want to instill discipline in youth have a
valuable resource in proverbs to fall on to. Proverbs constitute an embodiment of
local knowledge. It helps the learner to care, know and understand the self. Elders
can utilize proverbs to get the young to be ethically and morally responsible. But it
is not only Elders who can use proverbs. Any teacher can tap into the moment and
call upon proverbs to educate young learners. In a focus group discussion with a
group of College of Education educators and student-teachers in Nigeria, it was the
unanimous view that as far as youth character development is concerned both the
home and the school have important roles to play. But it was also noted that times
are changing and traditional roles of the home, family and educators have also
changed. Two females participants echoed such views:
A: Even apart from that charity begins at home. Even if the parent or the
mother is imparting that morality into the children and she herself is not
practicing it, I think the child or the children will not accept it because they
will be looking at the parent and will ask what my parents are teaching me or
what they want me to emulate are they doing the right thing?
B: But I dont want to accept that because most of our parents. you know
we are in a different age. Ok consider a mother that was not trained very well,
how you want that mother to impart the appropriate morals onto her children.
It is because this is in schools.
Both respondents believe in the importance of moral education to instill
discipline and sense of responsibility in youth. Teaching is by doing in practice for
youths to emulate. Youth learn by example. The student-teachers see the combined
responsibilities of the home and school in the socialization of the learner. Role
modelling is as critical and just as relevant as what is learned in a textbook.
Educators have many avenues and teachable moments to make an impact on their
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students. In this extract of the focus group discussion with Nigerian College of
Education students and educators, they noted the importance of moral education,
its specificity to local contexts and the ensuing relationship with civic education:
[Student] Morals are correct attitude of individuals of society. I agree
with him but moral is subject to interpretation. In some societies what is not
accepted, in their own society, in another society may be accepted in some
ways of behaving. So morals is subject to interpretation with regards to the
society.
[Student] Must learn. That is number one. Number two, [learn something] on
moral education. When we were growing up there was this moral, they call it
civic education. In that, with civic education they also teach you about
morals. With civic education you are taught to be nationalistic in nature and
your responsibilities as citizens of the country those ones are there. About the
curriculum, they are saying, I know the curriculum is there, maybe the
implementation or maybe they can like as she is trying to say if they can
infuse it, the moral aspect into all courses that will be a good thing. Or they
can infuse it in the general state of education. They can do that so that
everybody will be able to learn about morals and their responsibilities as
citizens of the country.
These students understand the significance of civic education. The relationship
with moral and civic education is significant as it highlights some of the teachings
of proverbs that stress social responsibility and the importance of education and
socialization in bringing out learners community to civic responsibility. To these
Nigerian educators morals address the accepted norms of society. It is through
education that one begins to learn about the accepted morality and the expectation
to govern ones life and experiences accordingly. It is important to highlight the
key themes of what young teacher education candidates at a University of
Education in Ghana also embraced concerning the question of moral education and
values. In these extracts of focus group discussions, the themes of values, humanity
and socialization are often repeated:
Values are morals that are cherished in the society or where the person finds
himself.
Values are the laid down rules within a society that society that expects an
individual to have.
We can equally say that the values; for example in Ghana, some of the values
we cherish are hardwork and respect.
Values are also like a guide for the human.
Values are long-held rules, expectations and codes of conduct of a
community. Some values are highly regarded are cherished by all members
of the community. Any disrespect for such values in frowned upon and may
elicit heavy community sanctions. Children are socialized and educated into
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the societal values and it is important for educators to be conversant with a

variety of pedagogic and instructional ways to impact societal values to
young learners. Proverbs offer an important opportunity and in this same
focus discussion educators offer some suggestions on what education of
social values should deal with. We can equally say that the values; or
example in Ghana, some of the values we cherish are ... hard work, respect.
As noted in Dei and Marlon (2011) the poignant words that keep coming up in
these voices are how values are cherished, values as long held rules; how
individuals are expected to have and be governed by values and how values keep
societies together and the responsibility of adults to impact values to the young.
These are all part of the processes of socializing knowledge in local communities
and questions of respect, discipline and authority are embedded very much in the
social fabric of community life. In other words, values are a way of life. Teaching
values is teaching about society in general culture, traditions, norms, perspectives,
expectations, moral standards as well as social relations among groups. Societal
values can be found or expressive in their proverbial sayings.
DISCUSSION
African educators understand the importance of working with disciplined and

responsible learners. In fact, many educators also see their role as helping to
shape and build strong identities, character and moral development among young
learners. While there may be contestations on the constituents of character and
morality the understanding of socially responsible action as significant in the
pursuit of learning is not in doubt. This paper has taken the position that
disciplined learner is one who is equally socially responsible and also
understand the self, self-worth and the collective responsibility to oneself and
others. Building enriched character among young learners is not to be understood
in the disciplinary sense of simply enforcing appropriate conducts of behaviour
of social action usually with its attendant punitive measures of strict
enforcements. The paper is calling for teaching discipline as a counter to the
dominant conception on instilling/enforcing discipline in young learners as
crucial to a re-visioning African schooling and education. In other words, the
search for genuine educational options of African must begin at the early stage of
focusing on what sort of learners do educators hope to assist in creating and
engaging with. Educators can learn from existing local cultural knowledge
systems.
It is a fact that local cultural resource knowledges of African peoples have
been the least analysed for their contributions to development. Embedded in
African cultural knowledge systems are powerful teachings that can be tapped to
strengthen the moral fabric of the learner today that can ensure that the student is
equipped with all the social and cultural skills to work with school and off-school
knowledge to improve the self, community and nation. Education should be
about understanding the self, personhood and the relations with others and
community. Any learner having a critical of identity in terms of who they are can
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GEORGE J. SEFA. DEI
withstand many challenges. Indigeneity and identity are linked in ways that
represent power, the power of knowing, personal and social strength, courage
and resilience, In revisiting African schooling and education, we need to go back
to African culture to critically examine and tap some of the pedagogic and
instructional relevance of local cultural knowledge systems such as Indigenous
proverbs. We must examine culture for its sites of possibilities and sites of
disempowerment. A critical appreciation of African cultures will allow us to
engage the question of power, tradition, knowledge and modernity such that we
reclaim knowledge systems that are useful and relevant for contemporary times.
Every culture is dynamic and the knowledge systems associated with a given
culture similarly undergo transformation to address emerging challenges. Rather
than a wholesale abandonment and denigration of local and Indigenous cultures
we must examine the sites and sources of positive (as in solution-oriented)
knowings.
There is a connection between science, culture and pedagogy. By science I
mean a knowledge system that permeates the subject disciplines of physical and
biological sciences, arts, social studies, literature and the humanities. These areas
of academic inquiry all have their Indigenous knowledges component. Such
knowledge that has been with people for centuries as they sought to understand
the nexus of society, culture and nature, and thereby fashion their social
existence. They are science knowledge given that they all have and follow
establish systems of thought. Science and culture becomes inseparable. Culture
as part of everyday interactions and a way of knowing is something schooling
and education has to critically engage irrespective of the discipline.
Consequently, it is important that the role of African culture in the pedagogy and
instruction of learners be established. Culture then is science and science is
culture. Increasingly we are seeing a generation of learners willing to shed their
own culture and cultural knowings in search of other practices and ways. The
issue is not to create cultural insularity but to argue for bridging of knowledge
systems as well as a critical interrogation of all cultures to understanding their
relevance and utility in local situations, contest and conditions. This is where the
idea of contextualized teaching becomes critical in the education of young
learners.
Contextualization of knowledge grounds science [as broadly defined] in local
practice and experience. In effect, then practice and experience is seen as the
contextual basis of knowledge. Learners are able to grasp knowledge [and school
science teachings] when it is related with/grounded in everyday experience.
Usually the teaching of science, for example, has been a difficult subject for many
students because of the inability to relate discussions to their own lived experience
or everyday social practice. Science becomes alien to the learners. By grounding
teachings in local contexts, environments learners can easily identity with
education and the production of knowledge. In the area of local/Indigenous
knowledge, for example, young learners affirm how proverbs and story forms have
impacted knowledge to them from Elders and adults. Educators who lace their
teachings with such local knowledges make an impact of their students as these
142
students are assisted to think through the import of the message being delivered
and to relate it to everyday experience, including local culture and the surrounding
environments. The nexus of local culture, society and nature constitute a body of
knowledge that educators can utilize in school teachings to deliver important
educational message. What is implied here is the self and community generation of
knowledge that starts with local contexts. It becomes a starting base to educate the
learner from where they are at and what they know. It makes the proverbial saying
that if one does not know what to say at least they can start by saying what they
know. The globalization of knowledge and knowledge production however means
youth education is effective when their learner is able to connect issues beyond
their own concerns, situations and environments to a broader context. Learners
cannot be insular and simply self-referential in their thinking and action and the
strength of the educated learner lies in the ability to move knowledge beyond
where they are at.
The evocation of local culture, traditions and Indigenous knowledge in school
teachings come with some risks and necessary precautions. As noted no culture is
static and neither is tradition immune to criticisms. As with all knowledges there
are power issues to be confronted and dealt with. For example, when culture is
evoked, we need to critically examine whose culture and traditions are being
heralded for discussion. How are gender questions beings examined in the
production of such knowledge? In particular, how are the voices of women, ethnic,
religious and linguistic minorities in local communities being engaged? Who are
said to be the cultural custodians? What the embedded gender, ethnic, linguistic
and religious biases are in such knowledges as local proverbs, folktales, story
forms, etc? In fact, an awareness of such questions affords us the opportunity to
engage in critical teaching of local knowledge, culture and traditions. Rather than
being dismissive of such knowledge, we must recognize their relevance and engage
in a critical interrogation of traditional forms of knowing as part of the exercise of
multiple and collective dimensions of the production of school and off-school
knowledge.
Nonetheless, there is practical relevance in terms of the applications of such
teachings about discipline, respect, identity, etc. These teachings help mould the
character of the learner to be socially responsible and to recognize the value of
education beyond the self. Such teachings allow the learner to bring a mindset to
schooling and education that sees as an obligation to improve upon their
collective current circumstances and conditions of existence. Such teachings help
recognize the importance of creating a community of learners able to learn from
and assist each other in fulfilling mutual responsibilities. Such teachings help
build a learner aware of themselves, who they are, their responsibilities in life
and what the purpose of education is about. Such teachings help bring a joy of
learning to students who develop a sense of belonging and identification with tier
schools, communities and their collective destinies. Such teachings help build
global subjects/citizens in the service of humankind. Such teachings help develop
a sense of responsibility to support cultures, groups, communities, nations and
their respective social and natural environments. Its a learner well-equipped to
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GEORGE J. SEFA. DEI
deal and respond to these social challenges who can best apply whatever has
been learnt in science, technology, arts, humanities and social studies. I see the
creation of such a learner as the biggest responsibility for African schooling and
education.
CONCLUSION
In this final section of the paper, I address the broader issue of integrating local
cultural knowledge in formal school teachings. African Indigenous education has
historically employed diverse methods of instruction whereby as part of everyday
socialization processes youth learn through exposure, observation, imitation and
oral traditions (see also Abrokwaa, 1999 in the case of the teaching of African
Indigenous music). As noted in Dei (2011c), there are obvious challenges in
contemporary education working with such knowledges. For example, long ago
Semali (1999) discussed the dilemmas in integrating Indigenous literacy (e.g.,
poetry, songs, dreams, life stories, drama and theaters, as well as proverbs) in
school curriculum in Tanzania as part of the Tanzania, Education for SelfReliance (ESR) national efforts to localize the curriculum. Among the obstacles
encountered were the lack of political will, over-dependence on international
assistance in fiscal planning and policy directives, the use of inappropriate
research methods, the absence of an Indigenous African teaching methodology
and the alienation of African intellectuals from their own culture (p.112) [see
also Semali, 1993, 1994]. These challenges need to be addressed in the long
standing calls for integrating cultural knowledges into school curriculum are to
be met. Mwadimes (1999) work called for the deconstruction in African social
research, education and educational policy to include Indigenous cultural
knowledges teaching about in agriculture, health science and the environment.
The author called for the development of new teaching methods, research
methodology and the documentation and presentation of the Indigenous cultural
knowledge in ways to serve the development needs of African peoples. Similarly,
Parrishs (1999) study on the Indigenous post-harvest strategies of local farmers
in the Egyptian Western Desert suggests that the existence of safe and welldeveloped pest management cultural resource knowledge of local peoples that
could be integrated with Western-influenced Agriculture Extension education
programme.
Teaching local language is critical in order for local cultural knowledge to
thrive and succeed in schools. There is research to support this. Writing in the
Kenyan context, Mulu (1999) has pointed to the contradictions of
Africanization stance by local state officials and governments. These
contradictions are found in the educational policy which devalues Indigenous
languages and encouraged to use English as a medium of instruction in local
schools. Conventional arguments advanced to explain the reluctance to adopt
Indigenous languages are untenable. This includes the view that such approach
undermines unity in a case of many local languages, [that is too] expensive to
implement or it is unfit in an international scientific and technological world
144
(Mulu, 1999 p.240). Recently, Miti and Monaka (2009) have discussed the
nature, extent and challenges of teaching African languages in primary school
teachers colleges in Botswana and Zambia. They found that in both countries
training of teachers of African languages is not taken seriously and moreover,
there is weak educational language policy and lack of will to promote the
learning and teaching of Indigenous African languages (p.220). The authors
suggest the need for language policies that favour the development and
promotion of Indigenous African languages in schools. In fact, Qorro (2009)
study show how parents and policy makers insistence on foreign languages as
media of instruction has severely restricted access to quality education in
Tanzania. Prah (2009) has also argued that African learners must be empowered
through the education of their Indigenous languages in local schools. In his
research on upper primary education (UPE, grades 7 and 8), Yohannes (2009)
shows how the use of mother tongues has resulted in better achievement in
sciences and math in Ethiopia. Emerging research points to the fact that a
students knowledge of Indigenous language and educators using such language
as a medium of instruction influences the effective teaching of science in
schools. In her study on English proficiency of students and teachers in Tanzania
and the way they deal with English/Kiswahili dilemma during science lessons,
Mwinsheikhe (2009) asked teachers to give lessons in Kiswahili in order to make
a comparison of the way teachers and students interacted in the lessons for the
purpose of a research project. The study found that the use of Kiswahili as
medium of instruction [in contrast to Tanzanian secondary school policy of using
English as medium of instruction], promoted high performance and minimized
the differences among students and between schools. The study concluded that
English as a medium of instruction in local schools can be a barrier to effective
learning and teaching of science in Tanzanian secondary schools.
In conclusion it may be observed that post-colonial African schooling and
education has tended to focus heavily on the formal instruction mode, with learners
simply acquiring basic knowledge, which is not necessarily relevant or applicable
to solving the local problems and challenges of everyday living. Presenting
education broadly, beyond formal schooling, allows us to rethink ways knowledge
can be utilized to address contemporary problems. Such knowledge exists in
African texts, songs, histories as well as local customary practices and traditions
that have helped sustain communities for centuries. Ensuring that local knowledges
become part of school educational agenda will require that we challenge prevailing
mindset where education in Africa is defined by congested curricula and strict
adherence to the curricula content to ensure success in examinations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Fieldwork material for this paper came from a study funded by the Literacy and
Numeracy Secretariat of the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). George Dei (as Principal
Research Investigator) will like to thank the Ghanaian [and Nigerian] educators for
145
GEORGE J. SEFA. DEI
their participation in the study. Special thanks to research assistant Ebenezer

Aggrey andrew Osei-Poku, Alfred Agyarko, Paa Nii and students in the 2008
Sandwich class: HRE 509: Human Rights and the Educational Law in the Faculty
of Social Studies, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana, as well studentteachers and educators at the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education
[ACOED], Otto/Ijanikin, Lagos, Nigeria.
NOTES
i
ii
iii
This initial study was funded through a contract grant from the Ontario Literacy and Numeracy
Secretariat (LNS) for a study on Moral and Character Education. The study has since been extended
with Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funding for a longitudinal and
more comprehensive study involving Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya focusing not only on proverbs but
on African Indigenous knowledge systems in general highlighting, Indigenous stories, story forms,
songs, folktales and riddles. The on-going study is highlighting the perspectives of youth, teachers,
school administrators, parents and communities to identify the specific and practical instructional,
pedagogic and communicative guidelines for using Indigenous African philosophies (conveyed in
the documented proverbs, fables, folktales, myths, songs and story forms etc.) and how these can
enhance learning for African and North American youth.
With this study the hope was that the African study will draw important lessons for addressing
similar and shared concerns about youth discipline and violence in Canadian and North American
schools. Local cultural resource knowledge, when used critically, can be an important source of
information and/or tool for educational delivery.
All local names used are pseudonyms.
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ETHIOPIA SURVIVES
REINTEGRATING OUR SPIRITUALITY AND CULTURE INTO OUR
OWN SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION: DEPARTURE
While flying back to Ethiopia from Canada to engage in conversation with my

research participants on the subject of the intersection of spiritual and cultural
values and science education, I kept thinking about how I arrived at this research
topic. Just two years before this flight, I set out from Ethiopia to Canada with the
objective of identifying the secret behind the development of Canada. It was a fact
finding mission. It did not occur to me that I might discover that much of the
development in Canada was material rather than spiritual, a development that
aggravated individualism and a culture of consumption.
In Ethiopia, even though we may not offer much choice on the table, we are
generally known for our hospitality and sense of community. The ideals of sharing,
generosity and sacrifice are not strange to our ways of life. The problem, however,
is that these ideals and values are not carried into our education system and the
work of civic organizations. Despite the major roles played by cultural and spiritual
traditions, such as family values, respect for authority, reverence for the sacred, a
sense of connectedness to a Higher Being, these attributes seem to evade the lives
of the elite politicians and scholars who set the school curriculum and determine
the fate of the common people. We are told that colonialism is to be blamed for the
destruction of the core values of African people, yet Ethiopia has never been
physically colonized. Where did we, the so-called educated Ethiopians, lose both
the local spiritual capital and material knowledge needed to develop our country?
Why didnt we carry with us the spiritual and cultural values of the ancestors we so
proudly speak about? Where did all those qualities of sacrificing for others and
trustworthiness go? How did the grandchildren of those who built the most
amazing sacred edifices, such as the Lalibela churches, who fought and defeated
Western colonial powers, find themselves craving the fruits of the civilization of
the same powers? Apparently, there is some disconnect here; between the past and
the present, between what is and what ought to be.
Because of my educational and occupational background I sensed that there was
something that went wrong in Ethiopia at fundamental level. And there is nothing
as fundamental and deep as spiritual and cultural values (Asgedom, 2009).
Therefore, I wanted to cross borders and study the Canadian spiritual and cultural
values that I presumed had supported its development. Soon after coming to
Canada, I became aware of the arduous, sometimes impossible, nature of crossing
SOLOMON BELAY
border physically, psychologically, culturally and linguistically. I continued to

reflect on how confused and impoverished the Ethiopian people remained when,
through formal education, they were forced to cross the psychological, cultural
and linguistic borders of the Western world. The national education system was an
imposition of Western mentality that stinted the potential for growth of our
country. Above all, as an experienced science teacher in Ethiopia, I was also
convinced that the so called science curriculum and its associated pedagogy are
just tools to enable regurgitation of information that has no transformative power.
It is a paradox that the more medical doctors and engineers, agronomist and
science teachers graduate from the Ethiopian school system, the more the country
slides into poverty. It is the reverberation of all these thoughts combined with my
Ethiopian and Canadian experiences that launched me back to Ethiopia to ask the
following questions:
How do Ethiopians perceive and practice spiritual and cultural values?
How are these perceptions and practices engaged in science classrooms?
What are the tensions that could occur if we deliberately try to engage local
spiritual and cultural values in science education?
The answers did not matter as long as I engaged with the questions with the
right humility; a humility that keeps reminding me that these may never be the
perfect questions and the findings may not present complete answers, but I am now
in the midst of a journey that I will pursue for the rest of my life. For now, I am
landed in Ethiopia and it is time to reflect on the literature that has prompted and
accompanied me on this journey.
LITERATURE REVIEW: LANDING
Every emperor of Ethiopia since 1908 has invested in formal education with the
hope of a better future for the country. Sadly, the result has been the production
of an elite class that has been a threat to the emperors power and ineffective in
fulfilling the aspirations for and of the people (Asgedom, 2009; Hailu, 2007;
Negash, 1996). The main purpose of expanding formal education in Ethiopia, at the
demise of a well-established traditional education, was to lay the foundation for
modernism and development. Such formal education, modeled after the Western
nations, was embraced with the highest hope that it would deliver the people the
much-desired economic growth. However, despite the high investment and interest,
community supports and efforts in formal education, it did not succeed in
achieving its desired objectives. As a result, it may not be strange to find a peasant
dying of starvation beside an agricultural college where its students study the
highest science of farming or a community that has difficulty crossing a river while
a university funded by their tax offer a course on how to build a bridge. Such a
tragic picture remains true to Ethiopia and most other African countries (Asgedom,
2009; Negash, 1996; Okrah, 2008; Spring, 1998).
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ETHIOPIA SURVIVES
REDEFINING EDUCATION
Anyone who has been working in the development field, at least in Sub-Saharan
Africa, realizes that the pumping of US$1 trillion in development assistance over
the last five decades and the intensification of formal education has not contributed
to the development of the region (Bolton, 2007; Klees, 2009; Moyo, 2009). Moyo
(2009), for example, describes this grim condition as follows, with an average per
capita income roughly US$1 a day, sub-Saharan Africa remains the poorest region
in the world. Africas real per capita income today is lower than in the 1970s,
leaving many African countries at least as poor as they were forty years ago (p. 5).
While Africa is clearly endowed with abundant natural and human resources, it is
ironic that wide spread famine, disease and corruption continue to affect the
continent. In the meantime, millions who could not thwart these problems,
continued to graduate from Africas secondary schools, colleges and universities.
Such dark economic, social and political situations in Africa call for a
redefinition of the concepts and methods of both education and development.
Bolton (2007), for example, considers capacity as one of Africas most lasting
development problems (p. 40). It is in light of this relation that one has to think of
capacity building as a major achievement of development and education as a sole
means of building capacity. Therefore, I believe that a re-examination of the
concept and method of development necessarily calls for the re-examination of
education. When these two dynamically interlinked concepts education and
development understood and practiced in proper perspective, are able to merge
into one whole empowerment enterprise. Development becomes the empowerment
of people through building their capacity by the means of proper education.
In its proper context, education is the process by which we reveal the potentials
in human beings. Bahaullah (1990) says, regard man as a mine rich in gems of
inestimable value. Education can alone reveal its treasures and enable mankind to
benefit therefrom (p. 260). Consequently, education as an enterprise requires first,
the understanding of what potentials/treasures human beings possess and then, the
revealing of these treasures for the purpose of the common good. In this sense,
education by and of its own becomes the means and the end of development.
Moreover, since human beings do not exist in a vacuum, understanding their
context is inseparable from understanding them. From the opposing perspective,
the failure of education in Ethiopia and generally in Africa can be ascribed to its
inability to understand the nature of human beings within their own environmental
and cultural context. Okrah (2008) summarizes the importance of culturally
contexted empowerment:
When schools help the learner to develop morally and intellectually by
expanding their knowledge understanding of their cultural heritage, the future
generation (students) would be empowered to develop culturally and manage
their environment and generate greater wealth for their societies. However,
schools have actually failed in Africa and other parts of the world in as much
as the economic and cultural agendas often come into conflict as the
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curriculums continue to reflect and transmit the cultures of other people (The
West). (p. 28)
For this reason, we need to redefine what education means and what it should do
in Ethiopia. By discovering our humanness and then our Ethiopianess, we might
create a starting point to reposition education in Ethiopia.
REDEFINING DEVELOPMENT
Building upon the definition and purpose of education given above, development is
an organic process in which our true nature (as located within our own
environment) is expressed and carried out in the material world (Abdul-Baha,
1995; Kamalu, 1995; Mbiti, 1969). For reasons I will discuss later, spirituality and
culture are so enmeshed with the nature of Ethiopian people and this is the true
nature that must be expressed and carried in our education and development
endeavours. In my discussion here, the term spirituality refers to the true nature of
Ethiopians, as closely as we can see, that embrace the vast array of their spiritual
and cultural wealth. The term science refers to our effort through which we try to
express our spirituality and culture in the visible world. In a document entitled,
Valuing Spirituality in Development (NSABI, 2003)i, we read that:
Embracing spirituality needs to be a guiding principle for a new type of
development where a sustained and intensive dialogue between the two
systems of knowledge, science and religion, takes place. Acceptance of this
principle will both necessitate and make possible major restructuring of the
worlds educational, social, agricultural, economicsystems. (p. 2)
According to this document, future societies prosper because the spiritual
dimension of human existence is taken to the center of every economic, social and
educational effort.
The idea of integrating spiritual values and local culture in education has been a
relatively recent phenomenon in both the fields of education and development
(Dei, 2004; Miller, 2007; NSABI, 2003; Okrah, 2008; Tedla, 1995). Foundations
are being laid, in part, by a growing number of efforts in universities and some
development agencies to have spiritual and cultural values and principles seriously
considered in the academics and development projects. At the heart of the
conceptualization of these efforts is the understanding that human nature is
fundamentally spiritual and that spiritual principles are the basis for culture. Such
understanding resonates with the Ethiopian soul which in the last centuries
provided us enormous motivational power in defeating colonialism and persevering
in the face of sever trials.
In support of the call of African scholars like Dei, Kanu, Mazrui, Mbiti, Okrah,
Tedla and many others for a type of education rooted in the understanding of
spiritual nature and cultural heritage and as a means for moral and intellectual
empowerment of the people, I argue that two major knowledge systems are worth
investigation in the Ethiopian context. I believe that the core concepts of
religion/spirituality and culture should constitute the first category of this
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knowledge system. Given the many historical and social backgrounds of the
country, any education and development effort in Ethiopia cannot ignore the
religious and cultural forces at work to which the citizens have strongly committed
(Bishaw, 2004; Michael, 2000; Wolde-Yesus, 2001) ii . I presume that after
spirituality science (and its education) has to be the second most important
knowledge system to be considered based on an appropriate assessment of national
and international scenarios and the role science plays in nation building.
In summary, in order to initiate and sustain the new type of development which
is greatly needed in Ethiopia, the creation of a naturally sound and culturally
competent model of science education is of paramount importance. In order to
create such a model of science education, first what is needed is an overall
assessment of the countrys spiritual and cultural context and second, a
development of science education (curriculum and instruction) that matches this
context.
In what follows I will briefly provide the background theories, the methodology
used and some of the findings and discussions in my exploration of the most
cherished spiritual and cultural values of the Ethiopian people and the challenges
and prospects of integrating these values into the science education.
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF THIS RESEARCH
I agree with the premise that without a proper understanding of the nature of reality
we cannot lay the foundation for a better education (Lample, 2009). In this
particular research, it is also imperative to define and situate spirituality in relation
to the nature of the universe, the nature of human beings and the nature of
knowledge.
All definitions of spiritualityiii, in their essence, stem from the belief that there is
a transcendental or a metaphysical nature or power, generally referred as spirit, in
human beings. In his book Education and the Soul, Miller (2000) states that to
deny spirit is to deny an essential element of our being and thus diminish ourselves
and our approach to education (p. 9). Miller (2000) defines spirituality as a sense
of the awe and reverence for life that arises from our relatedness to something both
wonderful and mysterious (p. 4). Such consideration leads me to believe that the
general scheme of this research falls under the theory of metaphysics, where I refer
to spirit as anything beyond the physical dimension of human beings. However,
within the territory of metaphysics, I prefer Medinas (2006) distinction between
understanding and practicing spirituality. These distinctions can broadly be
referred to as secular and religious spirituality.
The first one, secular spirituality, is a position that acknowledges the spiritual
dimension of human existence but mainly divorced from the concept and practice
of religion. Taceys (2004) argument captures the rationale of this position:
We can no longer situate ourselves comfortably in the containment of the
traditional religions. We need spiritual guidance, but for a variety of
historical and social reasons we cannot return to organised religion or
dogmatic theology in their old, premodern forms. Western society cannot
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be expected to return to antiquated systems of meaning that have not

themselves been part of the long line of historical changes and revolutions
that society has experienced over the recent period. (p. 2)
People who take this stand often identify themselves as being spiritual but not
religious and generally believe in the existence of many spiritual paths and deny
that there is an objectively set path to follow. Such spirituality is too personal to
fall under any form of religious belief and it comes with varieties (Redfield, 1997;
Tacey, 2004; Thompson, 1981). As Thompson (1981) put it Religion is not
identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in
civilization (p. 103).
Other scholars like Arbab (2000) dismiss the validity of a spirituality absent of
religious basis. He argues that the encounter between human consciousness and the
divine creates religious text, a basis for spiritual teaching:
In the text is described life in both its material and its spiritual dimensions. It
reveals aspects of spiritual reality, which, once uttered, can become the
subject of exploration, not only by the individual soul, but also by entire
populations. Without the revealed text, spirituality would be an expression of
personal experience, never to be validated by the intellectual interactions that
create social knowledge. For, by religious truth is not meant mere assertions
about the esoteric, but statements that lead to experimentation, application
and the creation of systems and processes, whose results can be validated
through observation and the use of reason. (p. 177)
Contrasting secular spirituality with what he calls religious spirituality
Medina (2006) indicates that religious spirituality is a metaphysical framework in
which the sacred, or that which is considered holy, assumes divine dimensions and
is located in transcendent spiritual realms (p. 104). In this sense, divine
dimensions or transcendent spiritual realms may attribute the divine as the
source of this spirituality. As rays are essential characteristics of the sun,
spirituality becomes an emanation of the divine vouchsafed to human beings as a
special gift (as distinct from other animals). Almut Beringer (cited in Medina 2006)
explains this concept by saying we conceive human beings as having spiritual
dimensions. The sacred or divine may be located in a transcendent, absolute,
metaphysical-spiritual realm; however, it is not limited to that order, but penetrates
into the physical-material worlds (p. 105).
Yet, both arguments show that we can take spirituality as a common thread that
runs among all human beings, whether or not they belong to any form of religion
or whether or not the concept of the divine is associated with it. The difference
between the two groups (those who associate and dissociate spirituality with the
divine/religion) would be in recognizing its source and may be in the purpose and
method of developing and utilizing spirituality. Religion,iv in this context, becomes
the broad framework or knowledge system in which one tries to understand what
spirituality is and how one can develop and use it depending on the context. It is,
however, important to note here what is suggested by Dei (2004), approaches to
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spirituality need to attend to and be critical and respectful of different religious

traditions, including secular thought (p. 154).
Because many Ethiopian and African scholars have described their peoples
conception of spirituality as embedded in religionv (i.e. a religion animated by the
fear of God), one will notice in my theoretical discussion that I favour the
religious type of spirituality. In order to underpin the theoretical framework of my
research and to show how spirituality emerges from religion to connect with
science (in this case, schooled science), I will be using Lamples (2009)
representation of the parallel between physical and spiritual reality (see Table 1):
Table 1. Parallel between physical and spiritual realityvi
LEVEL 1
LEVEL 2
LEVEL 3
LEVEL 4
Reality
(Ontologically objective reality; reality as it is; the mind of God)
Revelation (R2)
The Universe (S2)
(Revelation that can be known; the
(physical & human reality; facts,
revealed Word of God; the book &
patterns & laws of creation that
its authoritative interpretation)
can be known by the human mind)
Knowledge system of religion
Knowledge system of science
(R3)
(S3)
(the body of religious knowledge,
(the body of scientific knowledge,
including methods & standards of
including methods & standards of
inquiry and justification)
inquiry and justification)
Practical knowledge associated
Technology & practical
with spiritual life & moral social
knowledge associated with
practice (R4)
material progress (S4)
The ontology and epistemology of my research revolves around Level 3 in that

I believe and expound that:
Reality has both knowable and unknowable aspects,
What people can know about this reality could be put into either spiritual or
physical reality,
The traditional Ethiopian knowledge and practice of spiritual and physical
reality complement each other and need to be viewed in relation to each other,
Culture is a collective description of spiritual and moral life and technological
and material progress.
Science education is a process through which we understand, transmit and
transform our inseparable spiritual and physical culture. The division at Level 4
is just for analytical purpose; otherwise in the Ethiopian traditional way of life
both categories are like refractions on a single prism.
The only problem I see with Lamples representation is that it does not show the
centrality or the primacy of spiritual life over material progress. It puts the two on
par and hides the fact of interconnectedness in the whole schema of spiritual and
material lives. This may be generally considered as one of the shortcomings of
critical analysis of subjects.
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SPIRITUALITY, CULTURE AND SCIENCE IN EDUCATION
The discussion of religion/spirituality and culture in academic circles, particularly

in the context of science education, is not common, or it is mainly a source of
discomfort (Medina, 2006; Miller, 2000; Shahjahan, 2005; Wane, 2002). In
classroom discussions and published journals, unless they are meant to be on these
particular issues of religion and culture, the themes are relegated to the margins.
For example, out of 200 articles published in major science education journals in
2008 (International Journal of Science Education, Instructional Science: An
International Journal of the Learning of Sciences, Journal of Science Teacher
Education, The Journal of Learning Sciences, Journal of Research in Science
Teaching, Science Education, Science & Education) I found that only four articles
talked about the role of religion (without the word spirituality) while seven articles
investigated the influence of culture in science education. In another case, in the
journal of Religious Education (2008) 103, 14 issues, there was not a single article
written on the relationship of religious/spiritual values and science education.
Various studies conducted on religion and science, in the context of science
education, show positive outcome/relationship in the effort to help learners
perceive science and religion as complementary ways of knowing and doing
(Dickerson, Dawkins, & Penick, 2008; Mansour, 2008; Martin-Hansen, 2008). In a
study by Falcao (2008), where it was suggested that scientific training affects
religious beliefs, it can be seen that science education has a direct relationship with
spiritual values. Patchen and Cox-Petersen (2008) also found out that identifying
practical possibilities for culturally relevant pedagogy in science education is
important for students and teachers. After many years of teaching and working
with Native Americans, Cajete (1999) argued that spirituality cannot be ignored as
it is an integrated focus on traditional expressions of Indigenous science (p. 44).
If religion/spirituality and culture have a say in the education of Western countries,
it can be argued that in countries where Western science did not take root in its
proper form and use, research and education cannot ignore these concepts and
practices.
Parker (cited in Dei et al., 2000), building on this common meaning, states that
spirituality is the ancient and abiding human quest for connectedness with
something larger and more trustworthy than our egos (p. 93). Accordingly, this
process of the ancient and abiding human quest to go beyond the egos yield
fruits called spiritual values (e.g. truthfulness, generosity, trustworthiness,
compassion, respect, hard-work, integrity). As these spiritual values are integrated
in the social life of the society they become part and parcel of the societal fabric
called culture. Our egos reveal the animal nature in us while overcoming the
egos can lead us toward spirituality. As spiritual values pass from generation to
generation and are acquired within our lifestyle, they inherently define our culture.
Spiritual values become cultural values shaping what has been listed by Pai, Adler
and Shadiow (2006) as the pattern of knowledge, skills, behaviours, attitudes and
beliefs, as well as material artefacts produced by a human society (p. 19). In light
of this, the distinction between the spiritual values (acquired as a result of
conscious exertion to develop them) and cultural values (a pattern of living) slowly
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become blurred. In such a situation, people are no longer conscious of the original
source of the spiritual values, instead they live them as cultural values that are
taken for granted. These cultural values ultimately affect the way people learn.
When discussed separately from religion and spirituality, the term culture has
often been a source of controversy among scholars or happened to embrace a
diverse set of concepts and practices. In the context of this paper I share Parks
(2005) conception of culture as an objectifiable body of knowledge constituting the
legitimate foundation for the building of interventions. As I will continue argue, in
the context of countries like Ethiopia, religion and spirituality constitute this
legitimate foundation upon which to build meaningful educational interventions.
Therefore, identifying the specific spiritual and cultural values and recapturing
them into science education in the context of Ethiopia could be argued from a
number of standpoints:
Students are human beings and their learning should consider their spiritual
nature and endeavours (Dalai Lama, 2004; Vradenburg, 2007).
The material world is the reflection of the spiritual world (Abdul-Baha, 1987;
Guild and Garger, 2001).
Spirituality is an independent worldview with an impact on learning (Dei, 2008;
Griffiths, 2002; Halliday, 1978; Mansour, 2008; Matthews, 2002; Patchen &
Cox-Petersen, 2008; Shahjahan, 2005).
ALTERNATIVE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
Whether in Ethiopia or abroad, educators concerned about the shortcomings of the

transmission and transaction models of education are trying to come up with more
comprehensive and appealing model. They are looking for a type of education that
contributes to the development of the whole person or the complete human beyond
a mere transmission of facts and techniques (Cajete, 1994; Dei, 2004; Gitari, 2008;
Miller, 2007). In this kind of education, learning is rooted in the natural and
cultural milieus of the child. As Dei (2004) affirms, context and situation are
important in understanding the complex wholeness of the individual self/being (p.
156). Wholeness is also about creating connections among the various factors
surrounding the childs existence and developing the capacity to transform them
when it is necessary (Cajete, 1994; Miller, 2007). Transformative education
(Miller, 2007) is a type of education that brings spiritual discourse and local
knowledge into the curriculum, which has, according to Dei (2004), often been
rendered invisible, negated, devalued or at best marginalized by modern Western
philosophical traditions and scientific thought (p. 154). In fact, the inclusion of
cultural values or local ways of knowing in science education has been a persistent
call from some African and Native American educators (Cajete, 1994, 1999; Dei,
2008; Gitari, 2006; Tedla, 1995). The following theories and arguments open the
way for a new type of science education in Ethiopia.
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Argument from Postcolonial Theories Perspectives

Ethiopia takes pride in the fact that it has never been a target of direct colonization
during the colonial periods of the 18th and 19th centuries. This reality should have
led to an educational and curricular sovereignty. Yet, as postcolonial theorists
argue, Ethiopia has been a victim of Western schooling system as a result of bad
planning by its political leaders and North American and European imperialism
and their international development and financial organizations (Carnoy, 1974;
Spring, 1998, 2008).
Spring (1998) argues that with the breakup of colonial empires after World War
II, new forms of colonialism or postcolonialism appeared through the work of
international organizations, multinational corporations and trade agreements. In its
current manifestation, neocolonial power promotes market economies, human
capital education and neoliberal school reforms all designed to promote the
interests of rich nations and powerful multinational corporations. Education in this
context is considered more of an investment designed to produce better workers to
serve multinational corporations than the potential to serve ones community.
Education is mainly designed to encourage migration and bulge the educated
diasporas to supply cheap labour in big cities in Europe and America.
In a postcolonial framework, education is viewed as an economic investment
designed to produce better workers to serve multinational corporations (Becker,
2006; Spring, 1998). Poverty in underdeveloped countries is attributed to the
deliberate set up of richer countries to continue the cycle of imperialism. One way
of doing this is through privileging one form of knowledge or power through
institutions such as publishing corporations, research organizations, institute of
higher education and testing services (Weiler, 2001). This privileging happens in
addition to the features or elements of the colonial heritage that the colonized
people retain (Gyekye, 1997, p. 26). According to this argument, almost all
Ethiopias academic institutions, trade organizations and relations and government
and non-government operations have fallen into postcolonial traps. While not
impossible, it will be very hard for the Ethiopian schooling system to escape the
impositions of these organizations and donors whose advice usually through
consultancies is tagged with their money. Therefore, identifying the local
spiritual and cultural values and exploring how they can counteract these
impositions is part of the ongoing struggle against neoliberal agendas.
From the Perspectives of the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS)
One way of recognizing the need for working on local values is to examine what
we learn from the history and philosophy of science, at least epistemologically.
Starting the 17th century, science was revered as the only reliable source of truth
and a way to systematically deal with problems. The turn of the 20th century,
however, necessitated a shift in the ways we view and do science. Many science
educators agree that modern science has, somehow, departed from the assumptions
held about it in the renaissance period: the betterment of life and the provision of
happiness for all (Eriksson, 2008; Hodson, 1998; Rowlands, 2008). As a result,
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there is a call to reassess the aims and interpretations of the results of science. A
time has now come where scholars converge in showing the shortcomings of the
current practice of Western science and in doing so, the need to suggest a new
alternative and/or complementary knowledge system. Questions concerning its
epistemology and its subjective understanding and applications are now being dealt
within the discourse of History and Philosophy of Science or Science,
Technology, Society and Environment (STSE) (Cajete, 1994, 1999; Hodson,
2003; Hodson, 1998; Kipnis, 1996; McComas, 2004; Pedretti, 1997; Savan, 1988;
Wellington, 2001).
The subjectivity of science is transferred across socio-cultural realities as within
individuals realities. Human realities such as history, religion, culture and social
priorities, what Schwartz and Lederman (2008) call sociocultural embeddedness,
are closely linked with what and whether research is to be performed. As long as
the priorities in these human forces are selfish (i.e.: they stand only for a particular
interest group), science continues to be exploited for their promotion. History has
shown that science has been exploited for anti-social, commercial and military
purpose because of selfish motives. It has helped aggravate racial prejudice (in the
US and Germany), fanned ideological fanaticism (Russia and China) and served as
colonizing tool (in many African and Latin American countries). Studies of
eugenics, phrenology or Nazi Archaeology illustrate how science may be exploited
for personal ends (Friere, 1970; Hodson & Prophet, 1986; Savan, 1988; Selden,
2000).
Cajete (2000) also mentions how science is culturally biased. Counter arguing
the notion that science must be objective to qualify as science, that it is culturally
neutral and somehow exists outside of culture and is thus not affected by culture
Cajete (2000) states that nothing people do is divorced from culture, including
systems of knowledge, technology and education (p. 3). According to Cajete,
everything is contexted in culture (p. 3).
From the perspective of Sankofa
An Ethiopian-American scholar Tedla (1995) summarizes the concept and
objective of Sankofa as follows:
An important aspect of the effort to voice the need for incorporating African
values is summed by the Akan word SANKOFA. It is roughly translated as
Return to the source and fetch Africa needs a new type of education that
is rooted in traditional African philosophy and Indigenous education The
source is our culture, heritage and identity. SANKOFA means as we move
forward into the future, we need to reach back into our past and take with us
all that works and is positive. to focus on what is positive so Africans can
build on it as a foundation for future education (p. 1).
Many other African scholars have also voiced out their concern about education
in Africa through this alternative framework termed as Sankofa. While scholars
like Haile Gerima tried to capture the essence of Sankofa in a movie, others, such
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as Elleni Tedla (1995), Kwadwo Asafo-Agyei Okrah (2008) and Yatta Kanu
(2007), researched and wrote about the subject. The concern is, as Okrah (2008)
put it, despite comments that African cultures and traditions are outdated in our
modern era, these traditions have actually helped mould the attitudes and
characters of children to become productive and useful citizens. Okrah, in fact,
suggests the concept of Sankofa as the theoretical framework to identify the
valuable aspects of African culture, keeping the goal of national development in
mind. Tedla used this framework while travelling to North Ethiopia with the
intention of finding out local values to be brought into the national curriculum. She
then wrote a book entitled SANKOFA: African thought and education discussing
her findings. Tedla goes on listing the values and concepts she found through
interviewing an elder and then suggests that these values need to be incorporated
into the Ethiopian schools curriculum.
Besides some attempt made by Hailu (2007), Tedlas (1995) work is the only
real effort in identifying Ethiopian cultural and spiritual values with the goal of
bringing them into the curriculum. However, both studies have their own
limitations, which this research tried to overcome. Some of the limitations
identified in the research literature include:
the studies focused only on one source of data, as a result, it lacks the richness
of information that would have been extracted from different stakeholders in
curriculum;
the studies did not have a particular focus on science education;
they did not show how we go about including those identified values.
Residing in the USA, Tedla (1995) was not able to follow up her work through
dissemination and implementation. It is sad to see how her great ideas were
ignored or less understood by the Ethiopian curriculum experts.
From the perspective of Native Science
In the foreword section of Cajetes Native Science, Leroy L. Bear (Cajete, 2000)
discusses the importance of looking for localized knowledge. Bear argues that if
science is a search for reality and if science is a search for knowledge at the
leading edge of the humanly knowable, then there are sciences other than the
Western science of measurement (Cajete, 2000, p. x). Bear then adds that One of
these other sciences is Native American science. Accordingly, in order to
appreciate and come to know in a Native American science way, one has to
understand the culture/worldview/paradigm of Native American people (Cajete,
2000, p. x).
Like the African Sankofa, Native science is a metaphor for a wide range of
tribal processes of perceiving, thinking, acting and coming to know that have
evolved through human experience with the natural world (Cajete, 2000, p. 3).
Based on Cajetes (2000) argument that the perception of science as a way of
understanding the world, a story of how things happen, a way that human beings
have evolved to try and explain and understand existence in time and space and
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relationships vis--vis the natural processes of the worldevery culture has

science (p. 3). Brayboy and Castagno (2008) add, the ways that Indigenous
people engage the larger natural world are inherently valuable because they are
rooted in their experiences and reflect their own internal belief systems (p. 790).
With this understanding in mind Cajete (1999), for example, sets out listing and
explaining what he calls the general understanding of the Indigenous science
paradigm which includes almost all kinds of human understanding like
metaphysics and philosophy, practical technologies and agriculture, spirituality,
community, language, etc.
METHODOLOGY AND METHOD
If traditional Ethiopian knowledge came to persist in a research tradition, I would

have used the Amharic word Awuchachign/Afersata These terms refer to the
tradition in which a certain matter is investigated by bringing together those who
are concerned with the issue and some community spectators within the locality. In
Canada and generally in the North America context, this Ethiopian tradition is
close to what they call the methodology and wisdom of ethnographic qualitative
research (QR) (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Fetterman, 1989; LeCompte, Preissle
and Tesch, 1993). Basically, the focus of this methodology is about in-depth
understanding of human behavior and the finding of the reasons that govern this
human behavior. It is an ethnographic study in that it is about the routine, daily
lives of people (Fetterman, 1989, p. 11). Moreover, according to Lecompte,
Preissle & Tesch (1993) ethnography emphasizes the discovery of shared beliefs,
practices, artifacts, folk knowledge and behaviors, as well as highlights the social
mechanisms that facilitate these processes (p. 141). According to Denzin and
Lincoln (2000) to have an in-depth analysis of focused samples, this research
involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials,
personal experience; introspection; life story; interview; cultural texts and
productions that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in
individuals lives (p. 3). This research used more particularly data generated from
personal experience, interview, observation and focus group discussion.
I conducted this research in the environment in which I lived since I was born
and where I know the situation well. As is required in ethnographic studies, I began
my research with biases and preconceived notions about how people behave and
what they think (Fetterman, 1989, p. 11). However, I entered the field with a set
of specific questions and consciously interacted with the research participants as I
sought for answers. In my six months stay with the research participants, I was
looking for (observing) particular meanings, structures and tensions that a
particular group of participant holds both among themselves and with others.
Finally, I would like to make clear that this research was done with the intention
of identifying the spiritual and cultural values of the Ethiopian people and then
exploring methods to integrate these values into the current science education.
Therefore, I invite my readers to evaluate the research in terms of my background
and the methods I used, the potential benefits the research could give to the
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Ethiopian peoples and the knowledge it generates to the community of learners in

the areas of spirituality and learning.
Sources of the data
In consultation with curriculum experts at the Ministry of Education, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, White Tigervii Secondary school was chosen as the main source of data
and a spring-board to select the other samples progressively. The procedure in this
method was to start from three 10th grade students, sampled randomly and then to
work up with their science teachers, their parents, the science curriculum experts,
educational policy makers, potential employers, religious leaders, prominent and
elder figures. Three students, three science teachers, three parents, three employers,
two curriculum experts and two religious leaders were engaged for hours and hours
of retelling their side of the story. Stories that came out of these and my
understanding of them will be retold soon.
Instruments of data collection: An in-depth interview and observation
All participants were interviewed two or three times in an extended basis during six
months period using semi-structured interview questions. After each interview, I
took field-notes mainly on my impression/interpretation of the interview that I
shared later with the interviewees for their comments. The interview responses, the
personal notes and the comments all became part of the data source for this report.
The interviews were generally characterized by close and prolonged personal
contacts that included school, office and home settings.
FINDINGS
Out of a pile of data that came out of my engagement with the research participants
and field observations, I present here two stories that demonstrate my point of
discussion:
Story I
A stranger is travelling from one village to another. As the day got darker and
darker he has to spend the night under a roof, so he knocks at a close by house.
Owner: Who is this?
Stranger: Yemeshibet yeegizabher engida (I am a guest from God who got
himself in the dark.
Owner: Yegeziabher engida - Ayikum kemeda. Bet yeegizabher new.
(A guest from God, let him not stand outside, come in. The house belongs to
God.)
The complete stranger enters the house. No one asks the guest anything until he
is fed and the elaborate coffee ceremony is over. A child of the family comes over
with a bowl of water to wash the foot of the guest (symbolic of the story of Christ
washing the feet of His disciples) and a blessing is given to the child who did the
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washing. Tella, the local beer, is offered to the guest, which is made from the
materials reserved for unexpected guests. A delicious meal is also prepared and
served, which particularly pleases the children as it tends to be better than usual.
The guest is so well-treated that the owner of the home traditionally offers his bed,
or in case he has to sleep on the floor, the family members will sleep around him to
protect him from biting insects and to keep him warm.
As the dawn breaks the traveller guest bids farewell to the owners, thanks them for
their hospitality and proceeds on his journey.
Story II
A reluctant student raises his hand in the class. It seems he is not sure if he is
allowed to ask the question or the teacher can answer the question.
One can still read the specific objectives of the physics lesson written on the
blackboard:
1. Describe the dependence of the force of mutual gravitational attraction on
the masses and the distance of separation.
Write Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation.viii
Student: If the force exerted between two objects (mass) is measurable, though
invisible to the naked eye, why do we deny the existence and measurability of
such a force in human beings, or consider as magic or sorcery the force
debterasix exert on particular objects to make it move or stand without physical
contact?
The teacher pauses for some time and scratches his head as if he did not know
what to say or how to say it. The class atmosphere is tense. All of the students
await the inevitable response of the teacher.
Teacher: In Ethiopia, spiritual traditions and values were not explained in such a
way that it is understandable to the people. Otherwise, historically, the
word tewahido (as in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido x Church) was
meant to show blending, the art of connecting the visible and the
invisible. It was, of course, a concept of physics embedded in the
Ethiopian culture that shows how visible and invisible forces exist and
work together. This is nature at its simplest form but later institutionalized
as in religion and compartmentalized as in science.
When we see some aspects of mesewer (bilocalization) and other
seemingly magical events, Ethiopians are very familiar with it. Anderbixi
(a skill of make believe and other psychic powers) mesewer, divining, etc
are forms of great art. It is a form of knowledge. Or in modern physics it
is called time travel. Even mathematics has a place for these events. Such
exerted forces are so great that if I move my head to a certain direction, I
make the universe move in the same direction with me. The universe
moves according to my will. The knowledge of this power is discovered
in Ethiopia which later generation will acknowledge. Next you have the
verse in the Holy Bible which states that Ethiopia shall soon stretch out
her hands unto Godxii.
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Physics, for example, explains that the observer and the observed are
interconnected. Viewed from this light, we can be more than what we
appear to be. We could be beyond what can be observed from the outside.
These must have been the sorts of forces the debtera understand and use.
In an instant another student raises her hand, with a perplexed facial expression
from the teachers answer.
At this point the school bell sounded for the afternoon break. But few students
decided to stay in the classroom to continue the discussion. The rest of the students
gathered around the teacher and the interaction became more informal. They
invited me to join the circle.
The same student who was so eager to ask a question raised her voice and said:
When and where did we know this thing as Ethiopians? Where did we lose it?
Teacher: There was a time when the Egyptians flourished. But when this
civilization got into the hands of businessmen -- when it was traded for
money -- the knowledge within our civilization began to break down.
They started to abuse it and turn it into a farce. They usurped the good
culture and exploited it as a means of getting money. This knowledge
becomes a magic show just to get money.
This is a measure of emptiness. This happens when you feel you have
nothing to contribute and then seek enlightenment from somebody else. In
this situation, you cease to be creative and start to live on the toil of
others. The things of the spirit leave space to the things of the body. Then
development is opposed by materialistic assumptions and needs. ... People
exchange their values with immediate things. When this happens you see
lots of glittering things. But, in essence, it is only a matter of time before
our huge, so-called civilization collapses and then the time comes for the
meek to grow.
This is the difference between the holist and reductionist. As opposed to
the reductionist the holist have the universe as their standard (even
though it may not be clear to them from the outset), they are integrative.
When the reductionist thinks about salt on the table she focuses only on
the salt; the holist, by contrast, sees everything around the salt. So the
reductionist focuses only on what is visible. It is a sign of a decadent
culture and a beginning of down fall. It should have been 10% to the
reductionist and 90% to holism that sees the spirit too. That 10% helps us
to survive physically. In fact it is also approved in tewahido. So if people
focus on the invisible 90% they can control their environment, they can
even disappear and reappear physically. It is possible in the law of physics
too.
I jumped in and asked: So is it the invisible force (spirit) that helps us to
understand and control the environment?
Teacher: We are now talking about influence; which means something that is
invisible but has an impact like magnet or radiation. When you move a magnet
over the iron filings, the filings are attracted to the magnet. We see that happen and
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ETHIOPIA SURVIVES
the brain concludes something. They produce thoughts. If we think universally, we

think it in terms of the wide universe. We know we are just part of that huge
universe. If unfortunately, we think in terms of ourselves, about getting money,
that is the opposite of universal thinking. In return, such choices of thought and
practices impact and taint the material events. People to people interactions
become influenced on negative directions which is unhealthy. When unhealthy
thoughts abide in our mind, the manifestations become unhealthy. That is why we
see all these begging, disease, disaster, etc; it is the product of unhealthy thoughts
in our mind. It is the untuning to the universal wave. We focus on the trivia and
become lost. In another sense, when we see things in their natural state, we tend
to synchronize ourselves with the state of nature. We align ourselves with the
working of nature and as a result, meekness ensues which is the foundation for
development.
Student: Can everybody realize this force within? What is the method of
knowing and using it?
Teacher: It is about synchronization. There are different influencing waves.
Once we know that which one is a universal wave, we will all embrace that
universal influence. We could possibly call the highest influencing wave as God
beyond all religions. It is natural and based on fundamental equations. So physics
itself supports it. When we synchronize ourselves with the universal wave we will
come to terms with what is solid and realistic. Once such synchronization occurs
knowledge becomes available to everyone. There were times in Ethiopia this
synchronization occurred and civilizations flourished. I always believed that
science itself is our culture. What we are clouded with is the assumption that
foreigners know more than us. If we understand that science started here, if we
know our identity, we will know that civilization started here. It started around the
bank of River Nile. Civilization followed the Nile River and went to Egypt. They
might have recorded this history on the pyramids. But unfortunately we
undermined our own history of being the cradle of civilization and in the end, we
ourselves were being undermined. Moreover, communism damaged our culture
and history. Newtons mechanical physics also did harm to our education. We have
the knowledge but currently it seems we use it negatively. We may lose it
altogether if we continue to misuse the psychic power.
The principal came in and disrupted the discussion
ANALYSIS
After listening to and recording my conversations with the research participants, I

started to pack to return to Toronto. But at the back of my mind, I was trying to
filter and write down what I learned in the ocean of conversations and anecdotes in
which I was immersed. Through my lens, these are the few lessons that I learnt:
A) Supreme Being
In the Ethiopian way of life (way of knowing and doing), the belief in and the fear
of a Supreme Being takes the upper hand. In fact, the people make it so close that
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they consider the Supreme Being is special to Ethiopia; they call Him Yeethiopia
amlak (the Ethiopian God). This faith in God and the fear and respect that come
out of their love to Him is their standard of living. What is good or bad should be
differentiated based on the belief in God. When we examine the concept denoted
by the Amharic word newer it is an indicative term for thoughts and actions that go
against the will of God. The word God is engraved in almost every interaction and
conversation that takes place between individuals. When a teacher comes to the
class and say good morning or good afternoon students the usual response from
the students is egziehar yhimesgen (Praise be God!). When the boys tease the girls,
the girls try to avoid them by saying begzheir tewogn (I beg you in the name of
God to leave me alone). So it is not surprising, whether in travelling or hosting a
traveller, people invoke the name of God and associate their existence and actions
with His existence and will.
The Ethiopians also understand that the Supreme Being is invisible, but He
dwells in everything and sees every human thought and action. A good deed or an
evil action done to other human beings is equated with doing good or bad to God
respectively. That is where also respecting others, family, elders, guests, country,
religious figures, authorities, friends, etc come from. There is this saying Esu
bayayegn amlaku yayegnal (though the person can not see me His God will see
me).
b) Social institutions
The traditional social institutions are established based on the assumption that one
cannot exist without the other. The Supreme God is a creator for everyone and God
made all the people to be responsible for each other. Debo (a kind of teamwork),
still a major part of the traditions of Ethiopian rural community, is a good case in
point. In debo a group of farmers take turn to do the farming work for each other.
They sing and dance while doing the hard work of tilling and harvesting. They look
happy and energetic. A large amount of work is done in a very short time. There is
a lot of food and drink served by the host.
Other social institutions, like ekub (a sort of community banking) and edir
(a support network for events like marriage and death), are all expressions of
strong sense of community. It is through these institutions that the aged, the sick
and the impoverished are taken care of.
Moreover, the concept of yilugnta (a serious concern for public opinion) keeps
individuals in a community together and makes them abide by the unwritten rules
of community life and traditional institutions. Due to a deep understanding of the
interconnection among individuals, the concept of individual life is alien to the
Ethiopian people. Because of yilugnta it is common to see Ethiopians sharing
work, meal and drink among themselves, taking care of others bill, etc. It is a
belief that forces to sacrifice individual needs for the common good. It is because
of this that hospitality became an enjoyable tradition in Ethiopia. There is an
element of sacrifice in entertaining guests, but a traveller is a guest from God and
God sees everything and rewards good deeds. Additionally, if someone turns away
from entertaining a guest, she/he is afraid of being labelled as wicked by the
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neighbours. Because guests have been always welcomed by everyone, paying for
food is used to be a newer (taboo). Hotels are recent phenomena in Ethiopian
history. The first hotel in Addis Ababa is a century old and still serves as a hotel.
c) Physics as culture: the merging of science and religion
Ethiopia is one of the few countries where Judaism, Christianity and Islam blended
easily with the traditional religions and with each other. Evidence of this reality
can be seen everywhere in Ethiopia: from church ceremonies to social life; from
individual to community life. An in-depth understanding of the flow of energy
between matter (the visible) and spirit (the invisible) was an integral form of the
belief systems. Therefore, mesewer anderbi, spiritual healing, incarnation and
hypnotism were common knowledge for those who gave their attention and time to
its study and training. The treatise written by ancient Ethiopian scholars are full of
people who disappeared and reappeared, who came with some kinds of discoveries
one being St. Yared who composed the undying songs of Orthodox church.
d) The rise and fall of civilization
Based on the discussion in the physics classroom one may conclude that the rise of
civilization depends on the perfect marriage between fresh revelation from God
and the local/Indigenous spiritual and cultural knowledge. When the Jewish Faith
brought some new insights to the Ethiopian spirituality, the people were able to
build one of the worlds great civilization known as Axumite civilization.
Currently, the admirable obelisks of Axum stand witness to this view. At the peak
of the merging of local knowledge and Christianity, the Ethiopians were able to
build the great rock-hewn churches of Lalibela (the rest of the world has to
discover yet). Or it must be at the peak of the fusion of Indigenous knowledge and
Islam that Ethiopians were able to build the walled-city of Harrar.
Phillipson (2009, 2005), for example, discusses how Lalibela rock-hewn
churches are very interesting to study. He also admits that one of the obelisks of
Aksum is one of the largest single block of stone that people anywhere, at any
time, have attempted to stand on end (Phillipson, 2009, p. 13). Writing on the
Lalibela churches, Phillipson (2009) says that they even should not be called stonechurches and he categorizes them as hypogean (from the earth, subtranean)
churches to explain that they are not built rather excavated (p. 88). Phillipson
provides evidence of past and present to explain that those marvellous structures
are the product of Indigenous knowledge. The way these structures are carved out
of a single rock and the reasons they existed centuries and centuries without falling
apart are indications of the Ethiopians spiritual-science genius before such
blending, somehow, starts to disappear. It must have happened at the peak of the
amalgamation among spirituality, science and culture that Ethiopians made
supported by a sophisticated math. xiii Besides, the Ethiopians observed and
documented the heaven and developed great knowledge on astronomy (Awede
Negest, 1953ECxiv). They developed and used their own unique alphabets, numbers
and calendar. All these are impossible to do without having a deep understanding
of the concepts of physics and biology. After all, Ethiopians would not have
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sustained farming and herding for the last many millenniums without a proper and
holistic understanding of how nature works.
Looking at the economic and political situation in the country and based on my
engagement with the research participants, one can conclude that Ethiopia is in a
state of emergency; it is feeling empty and seeking enlightenment from somebody
else, it is living on the toil of others, the things of the spirit have left place for the
things of the body, its holistic and integrative view of life is lost for reductionist
view resulting in the aggravation of selfish motives and power mongering, the
mind of its people is invaded by unhealthy thoughts and has lost its synchronicity
with the Supreme Being and the positive energy. All the political instability, the
civil wars, the famine, the immigration, etc are results of the absence of and/or
distraction from the science-religion-culture way of life.
e) Science education in Ethiopia
Based on this conclusion, one can offer few suggestions for the future direction of
education in general, science education in particular in Ethiopia. Such future
direction calls for the rediscovery and the reintegration of spiritual enlightenment
with the study of the physical world. The subject to be taught and learned should
not be the type of science or religion as we know them now. It has to be a type of
subject/praxis that tries to understand and transform both the physical and spiritual
nature of human beings, the energy that flows between these two natures, the
process of developing this energy and the objective of doing all of these. The role
of this subject should be examining, conserving and/or transforming the traditional
Ethiopian psyche. Apparently, such recreation of a subject of engagement or praxis
needs to be followed by a new approach to teacher education, classroom
arrangement and programme evaluation. Moreover, in this type of a holistic
educational approach there is no marked border line between critical analysis and
whole-hearted acceptance and submission, between intuition and observation,
between real action and experimentation and between silent reflection and
engaging in dialogue, etc. In one word, the wall that stand between science and
spirituality collapses. Science becomes a scaffold to spirituality while spirituality
becomes a standard for science.
Based on these lessons, we can say that the current curriculum and instruction in
Ethiopia is far from taking them into account. All the research participants agreed
that problems like the ineffective training of teachers, the presence of plasma TV
that supplanted the human teacher, large class size, imported curriculum, excessive
rote-memorization and the English language, etc. plagued the teaching learning
process. The lack of participation of the local people in the curriculum
development, the lack of mechanism to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and the
failure to learn from past mistakes persisted in the Ethiopian education system.
Thus, a shift from such state of crisis to the new holistic education is not an easy
task. Tensions are expected from all sides. The plurality of views within Ethiopia
itself, lack of trained human resource, the hegemonic power, thought structures and
selfish motives of people who are benefiting out of the existing system are some
of the found at the center of the tensions.
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ETHIOPIA SURVIVES
Given a consultative approach and universal participation in the development of

curriculum some of these tensions are relatively easy to tackle. All people have the
potential to understand and work for what is ultimately good for them. In fact,
there is nothing much cheerful comparable to the process of rediscovering oneself
with the objective of becoming a subject of conservation and/or transformation.
Time must come where we need to look at ourselves; how the idea of God and
spirituality is engraved in us. I say it may be worth considering in our curriculum
the idea of knowledge as a gift or emanation from God and people with more
knowledge as having the lion share of this gift as was customary in traditional
schools. The fear of God and keeping His omni-presence as a standard of living
must animate education in Ethiopia. The tradition of considering respect and
service for others as respect and service towards God must be uphold in every
aspect of our educational endeavour.
CONCLUSION
In the article, I stated the reasons why I set out from Ethiopia to Canada, namely,
the search of values behind development. I then explained why I went back to
Ethiopia to find the answers within the country. I stated the major questions I
wanted to engage with the Ethiopian people, the methods I engaged with, some of
the findings that came out and my own understanding of what the findings are. It is
my hope that throughout the paper I drew attention to what is contextual; I
articulated my belief that the idea of contextualizing science education in Ethiopia
fits the vision of individuals with capacities to understand, critique and either to
conserve or transform their social and cultural conditions. It is only when people
are given the opportunities and take responsibility to understand themselves within
their own environment that they gain capacities to be creative and transformative
subjects and not just objects of domination and manipulation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my doctoral supervisor Professor John Wallace and

my friend Gary Pluim who have always offered their wholehearted support in the
research process.
NOTES
i
ii
iii
iv
A document prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of India (NSABI)
Ethiopian scholars who so forcefully wrote in Amharic the great spiritual heritage of the Ethiopian
people.
In this paper the term spirituality is used as an alternative term to the phrase spiritual value.
In this paper, I am using the term religion in its broad meaning as a system of knowledge that is
free from the blind imitations and fanaticism associated with some sectarian movements. it is
possible, indeed indispensable, to consider religions as expressions of one historical process
resulting from the interventions of the Divine in the affairs of humanity. In this sense it is legitimate
to explore religion and not religions as a system of knowledge and practice and identify its
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SOLOMON BELAY
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
xi
xii
xiii
xiv
contributions to the civilization building process along with those of science. (Institute for Studies
in Global Prosperity, 2009, p. 70)
90% of the population believe in God, either as Christian, Muslim or other minority faiths.
Reproduced from Lamples Transforming Divine Reality into Action, 2009, p. 121
Pseudonym
The medium of instruction is English. Where there were few words and sentences of Amharic for
better communication between teacher and students, I provided the translation in English.
Ethiopian diviners
Unlike the Ethiopian Orthodox church, other Orthodox churches, like Greek and Russia, dont use
the word tewahido.
Ethiopian diviners with this skill make you feel you are invaded by invisible external forces or make
you feel someone is throwing stones on your roof. They use their psyche/concentration power and
burn ones home and make someone sick without obvious reason.
King James Version, Psalms 68:31
Watch BBC FOUR at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4yrFXw20Q for Ethiopians knowledge
on math
EC refers the Ethiopian Calendar which is eight years behind the European calendar.
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WANGUI MBURU
INDIGENOUS CONCEPTIONS OF CIVIC EDUCATION

REINVENTING THE PAST
INTRODUCTION
Addressing issues related to direct and structural violence in the world has been a
daunting challenge for decades. In the world today, many theorists and governments
view civic education as a tool that can promote social cohesion and sound
democratic practices, thereby promoting peace. In Indigenous cultures, civic
education was and still is, conceptualized as that which promotes harmony among
people and harmony with nature. Whether Indigenous or otherwise, civic
educations main objective is ideally to promote that which is good for all
humanity. This being the case, is it possible, then, to synthesize conventional
Western knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing to address injustices in
todays society? This question is addressed later in this chapter.
I write this paper from the social location of a Kenyan woman educator who has
been educated both in Kenya and in the West. Although I now live in Canada, after
carrying out research in Kenya, I believe more than ever before in the need to
revitalize Indigenous knowledges as a way of dealing with structural violence in
society. Having lived in Canada for a decade, I have become a cultural bordercrosser. This accorded me an insider-outsider status which has been instrumental
in shifting my conceptualization of Indigenous ways of knowing in relation to the
teaching of civic education.
Some of the Indigenous ways of knowing have been time-tested and the world
can no longer dismiss these ways as non-scientific. Hobson (1992) argues that
Western science has been defined as a systematic and methodological approach to
answering questions; consequently, science is equated with knowledge that
provides solutions to problems. He further notes that in the West, science is based
upon principles of repeatability and predictability, principles that are in line with
Indigenous knowledges. He therefore argues that this being the case, Indigenous
knowledge is indeed science. Following Hobsons line of argument, I will
illuminate how African Indigenous knowledges and Western knowledge can be
complementary tools, rather than competing tools, for promoting peace and
democracy.
In this chapter, I give an account of my doctoral research findings that made me
rethink the place of Indigenous civic education in Kenyan schools in particular and
in African schools in general. My dissertation journey started with the quest to
uncover what schools do or do not do to create spaces where controversial issues
that would promote peace, social justice and democracy are addressed. In
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particular, I was interested in investigating how social difference in relation to

ethnicity, gender, class, ability and religion was addressed in the official, the
enacted and the hidden curricula. This quest was undertaken in response to the
2008 ethnic violence that occurred in Kenya shortly after the countrys presidential
general elections and the 2008 widespread strikes and violence in Kenyan
secondary schools. I wondered whether the violence was a manifestation of bottled
up grievances; I also wondered whether the cause of bloodshed was deeply rooted
in the structural violence the citizenry had been subjected to for decades as is the
case in many African countries (Altbach, 2005; Amutabi, 2002).
Civic education (which is taught as part of the history and government course in
the Kenyan education system at the high school level) was purposely chosen
because the subjects central goal is to address issues that promote social cohesion
and therefore offers a platform for the explicit discussion of issues that would
promote peace, not only in the confines of the classroom, but also in the broader
society. In this study, the terms history, civic education, history and government
and social studies are used interchangeably.
The chapter is organized into six sections. First I briefly discuss the theoretical
framework that informs the study. I then explain how the notions of peace and
democracy are conceptualized in the study. This is followed by literature on the
need to teach peace. Fourthly, I outline the methodology, which is followed by a
discussion of the findings. I end the chapter with a discussion on the possibility of
including Indigenous conceptions of civic education in Kenyan classrooms.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Given that my research is related to how students participate in knowledge

construction in order for them to become active citizens, I have used critical
constructivism as my primary framework. The central thesis of critical
constructivism is that the learner is a meaning-maker; that is to say, the learner is
active in the process of receiving information, building knowledge and
understanding and therefore should have autonomy in the learning process.
Proponents of critical constructivism argue that the approach fosters democracy in
the classroom. Soto (1999), for example, asserts that critical constructivism seeks
to eliminate silences and voicelessness, thereby paving the way for a greater
moral vision of social justice and equity (p. 110). Critical constructivism
encourages students to learn how to think. Therefore, it is possible to posit that
when educators make education a dialogical process (Freire, 1992, 1993), they
create spaces for students to feel comfortable expressing their ideas; spaces where
students will not fear losing face because they know the teacher respects their ways
of knowing. The classroom becomes a place where students feel comfortable to
share their lived experiences. It becomes a place where students concentrate on
sharing knowledge rather than concentrating on rote memorization. Using this
theoretical approach has allowed me to question the extent to which students
contribute to the learning process by sharing their knowledge.
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This study has also been informed by critical pedagogy whose educational
vision is to work towards justice and equality and whose principles are consistent
with a critical constructivist approach to education. Thus, while critical
constructivism focuses on students knowledge construction, critical pedagogy
focuses more on deconstructing social processes and challenging educators to
make education liberatory. Both frameworks attempt to understand issues of and
ask questions about how knowledge is constructed, how it is transmitted and why
the given knowledge is transmitted (Kincheloe, 2003, 2005, 2008). These
complementary frameworks provide an important lens through which one may
examine if students are provided the opportunity to construct knowledge. Using the
same lens, it is also possible for one to investigate if civic education knowledge
conveyed through the Kenyan official and enacted curricula explicitly addresses
issues related to peace and democracy. Given that the notions of peace and
democracy may have different interpretations in different contexts, it is important
to explain how the two notions are conceptualized in this study.
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF PEACE AND DEMOCRACY
Galtungs (1964) introduction of the terms positive peace and negative peace
into the field of peace research led to a shift in the way the notion of peace is
conceptualized. Galtung argues that peace is two dimensional: negative peace
(italics in the original) which is the absence of violence, absence of warand
positive peace (italics in the original) which is the integration of human society (p.
2). Thus, the term peace does not strictly refer to the absence of war (Brock-Utne,
2000; Galtung, 1964, 1969, 1985; Hoivik, 1977). According to Galtung (1969,
1985), peace is not just the absence of direct violence (negative peace), but it is
also the absence of indirect violence (positive peace). While direct violence is
usually explicit and therefore easy to recognize, indirect violence, which is also
known as structural violence, (Galtung, 1969) is sometimes too subtle to recognize.
Galtung (1985), who coined the term structural violence, explains that this
violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and
consequently as unequal life chances ( p. 171). Thus, structural violence prevents
individuals, groups and societies from reaching their full potential. This kind of
violence is structural because it is embedded in the very political and economic
organization of peoples social worlds. To Galtung (1985) and Hoivik (1977),
structural violence is as harmful as direct violence because it maims and kills as
surely as the bullet and the knife (Hoivik, 1977, p. 59). Structural violence
manifests itself in forms such as discrimination, exploitation and injustice.
Therefore, eliminating or minimizing such structural violence would be a step
towards peace and social justice, the egalitarian distribution of power and
resources (Galtung1969, p. 183).
The notion of democracy, which has been mainly and erroneously identified
with majority rule, include voting and respect for election results, but it also
requires the protection of liberties and freedoms, respect for legal entitlements and
the guaranteeing of free discussion and uncensored distribution of news and fair
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comment (Sen, 1999, p. 910). The above conceptualization of democracy,

according to Young (2000) and Diamond and Morlino (2004), implies that a good
democracy accords its citizens freedom, political equality and control over public
policies; all members have equal influence over debate and decision-making. Thus,
the promotion of such democratic practices, like the promotion of peace, would
result in social justice.
THE NEED TO TEACH PEACE
There is voluminous literature that emphasizes the need to push for peace in a
world that is tainted with so much violence (Bickmore, 2006; Brock-Utne, 2000;
Goldstein, 2005; Harber, 1996, 2004; Harber&Sakade, 2009; Harris, 2004;
Jackson, 2001; Klopp, 2001; Waghid, 2004, 2007). Waghid (2004), for example,
suggests it is imperative students learn being compassionate as part of citizenship
education because compassion would eliminate some of the violence that is
experienced both in schools and in the wider society. In a similar vein, Bickmore
(2006) points out that it is important to have students from diverse cultural
backgrounds voice their views on how to resolve conflicts and have them delve
into the real world of social and political conflicts and injustices.
Speaking on global peace, Brock-Utne (2000) asserts that equality of rights and
equal power sharing for every member of society would make the world a more
peaceful place, at both local and global levels. She notes that globalized market
economy is changing social structures, causing structural violence where some
people become poorer while others grow richer which in turn leads to less peaceful
societies. She therefore proposes schools promote an education that would include
the study of the growth of inequalities between the developed and the developing
nations, inequalities between nations and within nations. Such education, she
argues, would not only develop critical and analytical minds, but would also
promote cooperative ways of working together to solve socio-political problems.
In developing countries where direct violence abounds, most conflicts involve
political violence between factions in a single state (Jackson, 2001). Jackson
further notes that since the 1980s, the continent of Africa has been the most
conflict-prone region in the world. The root cause of most of this violence stems
from marginalization of some ethnic groups. This is supported by Ukiwo (2007)
and Osaghae (2005) who explain how ethno-regional domination of the public
sector breeds violent conflicts in Nigeria. No other case is more telling than the
genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1990s where, even today, people have to
continually uproot seeds of discord that are deeply entrenched in the region.
According to a UNICEF report, the Belgian government that colonized Rwanda
taught the Tutsi to regard themselves as a ruling class while the Hutus were trained
for manual jobs (Bush & Saltarelli, 2000). Bush and Saltarelli (2000) further
contend that such unequal distribution of education excludes groups from full
participation in the socio-economic life of a country. Thus, it was the marginalization
of the Hutus by the Tutsis that led to ethnic hatred and when the Hutus came into
power, they oppressed the Tutsis so much so that many sought refuge in the
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neighbouring countries. The escalation of this marginalization and discrimination

eventually led to the 1994 genocide that left almost one million people dead.
Ethnic cleansing has become common in most African states. Other well-known
cases occurred in Somalia and Sudan.
In the years prior to 1991/1992, Kenya was said to be relatively peaceful until
the first wave of violence spread to many areas of the country during the first
multiparty general elections. However, none of the first two waves compared to the
violence of 2008 where about 1,000 people lost their lives and about 350, 000 were
displaced from their homes (Dagne, 2011). Branch and Cheeseman (2008), Dagne
2011) and Lynch (2008) report that the 2008 violence was triggered by presidential
results that declared the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, the leader of Party of
National Unity (PNU), the winner of the elections that were believed to have been
rigged and flawed. It is worth noting here that the president belongs to the majority
ethnic group, the Kikuyu who are viewed as economically and politically powerful.
This move to re-elect Mwai Kibaki angered the supporters of Raila Odinga, the
leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). To demonstrate their anger
and frustration, ODM supporters, the majority of whom were Luo, Odingas ethnic
group, targeted the Kikuyu, burning their property, driving them out of their homes
or killing them (Dagne, 2008). Dagne (2008) further notes that in retaliation, the
Kikuyu, aided by security forces, took up arms against the Luo and the Kalenjin
whom were perceived as the ethnic groups supporting the opposition. In the Rift
Valley province, for example, Kalenjin vigilante groups targeted Kikuyu
settlements because the Kikuyu are perceived as outsiders who went to the Rift
Valley Province to dispossess the Kalenjin community of their ancestral land. On
the other hand, the Luo were embittered by the fact that since independence, they
had never enjoyed political power which all along had been in the hands of either
the Kikuyu or the Kalenjin (Dagne, 2008).
Given that political leaders seem to favour members of their own ethnic groups
once they are in power, ethnicity is viewed as instrumental in accessing power and
winning the elections. This makes it easy for politicians to manipulate the citizenry
for their own political interests. The fact that this was the third wave of ethnic
violence since 1992, it is necessary to investigate how issues related to social
differences are addressed in Kenyan schools to promote peace and democracy.
METHODOLOGY
To gain insight into Kenyan students experiences in civic education classrooms, I

have used a qualitative research approach. According to Merriam (2002), using
such an approach allows one to learn how individuals experience and interact with
their social world and the meaning it has for them (p. 4). The approach lends itself
to the interpretive understanding of human experience (Denzin& Lincoln, 2005).
Therefore, using this approach has allowed me to investigate how students and
teachers construct and interpret their socio-political reality (Merriam, 2002).
From the wide range of qualitative research approaches, I have adopted an
ethnographic approach to conduct my research. Pole and Morrison (2003) define
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ethnography as an approach to social research based on the first-hand experience

of social action within a discrete location, in which the objective is to collect data
which will convey the subjective reality of the lived experience of those who
inhabit the location (p. 16). This first-hand experience is captured through
observation, interviews and document analysis (Foley & Valenzuela, 2005; GrinLajoie, 2003).
The fact that ethnography lends itself to a study of the structures and
interactions which shape social groups has made it appropriate for my study. For
one, it has provided me with an opportunity to immerse myself in the social world
(Esterberg, 2002) of the students in order to gain more insight into the students
lived experiences in the classroom. A look from within therefore helped me to
capture students lived experiences. From this vantage point, I also examined how
teachers of civic education define knowledge in terms of civic education and why
and how students interact with the given knowledge. This approach to my study
was necessary to examine the way the Kenyan civic education curriculum and
teaching practices foster, or do not foster, peace and democracy.
In order to study the civic education curriculum, I spent four months in two high
schools in Kenya observing civic education lessons. Participants in the study were
recruited from the two schools in Nairobi. The context was also purposively
selected given that it addressed a specific purpose related to my research question
(Teddlie & Yu, 2007). This research question sought to look into issues pertaining
to social difference and Nairobi public schools stood out as an excellent choice
because these schools offer the kind of ethnic diversity that I wanted to investigate
(rural settings are more or less ethnically homogenous). Additionally, the urban
setting explicitly represents different social classes, a characteristic that is subtle in
rural settings.
The body of participants included the principals of the two schools; 48 Form 1
students who were selected to participate in group interviews from four Form 1
classes comprising 184 students; four civic education teachers teaching the four
classes; and one official from a government education agency involved in
developing civic education/social studies curriculum. Although views of most
participants have not been included in this paper, the few that have been quoted are
a representative of what was echoed by the majority of the participants.
Profile of Participants
The four teachers, whose ages ranged between 35 and 45, were all female. All had
a teaching experience of more than 10 years and they all had professional training.
The Curriculum developer was a man in his early 40s and had worked in this
capacity for a government education agency for several years. However, at the time
of the interview he had been a history and government course curriculum
developer for one year.
The principal of Kapana High School was in her mid-40s. She had been a
teacher for 22 years. At the time of the interview she had held her administrative
position for 7 years, as a deputy principal and later as a principal. The principal of
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Lango High School was a woman in her late 40s or early 50s. She had a teaching
experience of about 25 years. Prior to becoming the principal of Lango High
School, she had been a deputy principal of a big school for many years. At the time
of the interview, she had worked as a principal for one year.
Out of the 48 students who participated in the group interviews, 24 were girls.
The students came from 7 ethnic groups which represented all the ethnic groups in
the 4 classes of both schools. Their ages ranged between 14 and 17. The age gap
results from several factors: one, students might not have started school at the
recommended age. Two, poor performance at lower levels might have forced them
to repeat classes at the elementary level and three, before the introduction of free
education students often dropped out of school due to lack of school fees only to go
back much later when fees were available. What follows next is a summary of the
findings and the discussion.
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF PEACE IN THE KENYAN CONTEXT
Findings suggest that the history and government official curriculum explicitly
articulate the importance of promoting democracy and social justice, aspects that
are viewed as critical to the promotion of peace and national unity. However, the
notion of peace is conceptualized as the absence of direct violence by the teachers
and in the official curriculum. To this end, both the official and the enacted
curricula emphasize the importance of developing patriotic, loyal and responsible
citizens who would not be involved in direct violence. This is illustrated by
Teacher Aminata:
why are people fighting along tribal lines? It is because they have not been
educated a lot about what it means to be united and what it means to work as
a nation. So they dont know, so they can be educated... So you instil in the
students what it means to be patriotic. A patriotic citizen will not fight. A
patriotic person will not view other people as if they dont belong to his
communityyou have to live in peace with other people. You can sell your
produce to other people and also they can buy from you.
All the educators, including the curriculum developer defined a good citizen as
one who is patriotic, responsible, loyal, law-abiding and peace-loving. This
definition is echoed by students albeit in different words:
Damaris: History teaches law, it is supposed to be taught well so that we as
young people when we grow up we grow knowing the government wants us
to do this and does not want us to do this and we know the laws that govern
our country.
Linda: In history and government I like the topic about national integration
because it teaches us about how we can solve the conflicts in our country as
in the post elections, the laws we can take to court those who led the postelection violence. No one is above the law.
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Maria: I get to know the meaning of conflict and how to resolve conflict so
that we can know what to do when we find people quarrelling. You can know
what steps to take during negotiation.
This prompted me to ask the students what role they played (bearing in mind
what happened during the post-election violence) as good citizens who had the
duty to ensure there was peace and national cohesion. One student, Isaac,
responded by saying, we help those people who were displaced by donating food;
clothes that you feel you dont need, yeah. This view was shared by the majority
of the participants.
The kind of citizen portrayed here is the personally responsible citizen that
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) describe; the kind of citizen who contributes to
causes such as feeding the hungry. According to Westheimer and Kahne (2004),
such citizens do not critically assess socio-political issues; consequently, instead of
trying to address the root cause of problems, they deal with the results of the
problems. Acts such as feeding the hungry, although noble, may not lead to social
transformation. In fact, the danger of such blind patriotism is reflected in the
comment made by Beth, one of the student participants:
Beth: We learn patriotism is one way of showing love to your country. That
is why most citizens we love our countryI mean showing love to our
country is by following the rules. We follow the rules in our constitution and
respecting our leaders. We should not insult our leaders for example when we
see our president talking on the screen we shouldnt say look at that person
he has made people really suffer [laughter].
Beth raises an interesting point here. To her, one of the important lessons history
teaches is to be a patriot, one who does not critique the government. From her last
statement, one can infer that whether the government acts responsibly or
irresponsibly, a patriotic person should not critique the government, but portray
steadfast love for his or her country.
In short, to all the above stakeholders, history is supposed to produce good
citizens who abide by the law and promote peace by remaining uncritical of and
loyal to the government or leaders. But as already explained peace cannot only be
defined as the absence of war or physical violence because it also means the
absence of structural violence (Galtung, 1964, 1969). While it is important to
discuss issues that may keep direct violence at bay, failing to discuss the more
subtle acts of violence makes it difficult to move towards justice and peace.
SUPPRESSION OF CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES: PROMOTION OF
NATIONAL UNITY DISCOURSE
In most societies, issues pertaining to race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation,

social class, gender, ability etc, often times lead to heated debates and people may
try to avoid them. Teachers in this study were no exception. For instance, Teacher
Katungwas view was that controversial issues were to be kept at bay in history
classes. She explained:
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You see ethnicity initially was not an issue at all, especially during our time
in school, it wasnt. That is why I am telling you the trend of things today is
what is bringing all this. Initially it was silent. We learned not to be conscious
of ethnicity, so in fact today we are teaching them that if we belong to one
nation we dont bring in ethnicity at all. So you dont tell them although you
belong to this and that ethnic group. You tell them you are all Kenyans. Just
tell them, to show them we are together, these are some of the things the
government is doing; we have things like hospitals, things like schools, we
have one constitution, so we belong to one another. So we try our level best
not to mention ethnicity, though we know it is there. Yes, we try our best.
Just tell them that Kenya has diverse communities. We are about 42So
what we tell them is that Kenya is a country with so many ethnic
communities, but that one is not an issue. We belong to Kenya, and the
government is trying its best to give us A, B, C, D to show us we belong to
one nation. The idea of going into details about communities, I would try to
avoid it because if you bring it up it is like telling them you, you are Kalenjin
and you, and you are a kikuyu, a Luo, no. We try to avoid that and tell them
we are Kenyans and this is what we are supposed to do.
It is clear from this discussion that controversial issues in relation to ethnicity
were avoided by introducing the discourse of samenesswe are all Kenyans.
This discourse parallels the discourse of colour blindness usually found in contexts
where race is a controversial issue. Like the discourse of sameness, colour
blindness ignores identities or differences, thereby making it difficult to challenge
inequality and injustice in the society (Apple, 2003; Applebaum, 2005; GrinLajoie, 2008; Knight, 2008). Dei (2004) reminds us that for people to deal with the
asymmetrical power relations within schools, they need to appreciate and
acknowledge social difference. For Teacher Katungwa of Lango High School, the
best strategy of dealing with difference was to tell students the government treated
them equally. A similar approach was adopted by Teachers Hekima and Syombua
of Kapana High School and Teacher Aminata of Lango High School. Scholars such
as Avery (2007), Bickmore (2008), Fine (1993) and Hahn (1998) argue that if
democracy and social justice are to be promoted, controversial issues should be
explicitly discussed in schools. In a later conversation, Teacher Katungwa
explained it was important to discuss controversial issues but avoided doing so
because she wanted to adhere to the syllabus. The fact that teacher Katungwa felt
compelled by the official curriculum to tell students that they were all Kenyans is a
clear indication that the government uses the discourse of national unity to create
and maintain a sense of shared national identity and cohesion among citizens
(Bickmore, 2008), sometimes at the expense of the very citizens. It seems that the
history and government curricular content is controlled to serve that purpose; it
promotes national identity by advancing the myth of sameness, as is referred to by
hooks (1992; as cited in Knight, 2008).
This myth of sameness was embraced by the students who expressed that both
boys and girls were the same because they all wore uniform and received the
same education. When students view themselves as equal because they receive the
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same education, this demonstrates how the official discourses of we are all
equal and we are all the same mask gender-related injustices. In each of the four
classes, only 1/3 of the students were girls. One might wonder if both boys and
girls had a right to education, where were all the girls? Dei (2004) points out that
discussion on gender differences and schooling in Africa has not critically
interrogated the ways in which gender puts girls at a disadvantage. In Kenya, for
instance, girls are assigned house chores most of which are done after school, while
boys hardly do such chores (Kubow, 2007) and to say that boys and girls have
equal opportunity with respect to education is rather misleading. This makes
gender, in this respect, a social difference that is accorded differential treatment
differential treatment that has been rendered normal and natural. In brief, the
promotion of the myth of sameness collapses social differences and only helps to
veil causes of violence, both structural and direct.
AUTHORITARIANISM
Findings from the observations revealed that the four Kapana and Lango teachers
deeply cared about their students and they did their work to the best of their ability
and knowledge. However, their teaching practices were authoritarian in the sense
that teacher talk dominated the lessons and students only talked when called upon
to answer questions, most of which required factual answers. Such teaching
practices failed to create dialogic spaces where students could voice their opinions.
As expressed by student participants, such a space and other activities that do not
involve teacher talk and note-taking would help them in several ways:
Frank: So far I dont think we have done any activities. We just write notes
and the teacher comes and explains it, so there are some people who cannot
understand it we should involve a democrat or a politician so that we can
know what we are being taughtWriting notes is an activity but it is more
frustrating to write notes, read them and you will never understand. It is just
like you have wasted your energy
Robert: I like debates because they help me to express what I feel in my
heart.
Saha: Debates are good. We can choose the topic and then discuss with other
students and get more details on it, for example advantages and
disadvantages.
Lydia: and also when we debate for example looking for solutions about for
example which theory is correct evolution of man or creation theory we
develop our critical thinking. I mean you think, just think. You think for
example if this was to be done, what would be the consequences or the
results?
Lydias statement clearly points to the fact that debating can promote future
democratic citizens who have the ability to examine different points of view to
solve problems or make decisions. Lydias understanding of debate does not
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involve competition but what Freire (1993) refers to as dialogue, where no person
imposes his or her idea over another. Freire explains that
This dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one persons depositing ideas
into another, nor can it become the simple exchange of ideas to be
consumed by discussants. Nor is it a polemical argument between those
who are committed neither to the naming of the world, not to the search for
the truth, but rather to the imposition of their own truth (p. 89).
Constructivists contend that if students are to be prepared to become active
citizens, they should be provided with opportunities where they can test what they
have learned by comparing it with what they already knew in order to construct
new meanings or understanding. Thus, if classrooms are to be places for
democratic communication, it is necessary for communication to reach what Freire
(1993) describes as the point of encounter. This is where there are neither utter
ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only people who are attempting together
to learn more than they know (p. 90). It points to what Saha expresses when she
says debates are discussions where students learn from other students and in more
detail, about a topic. Though the above students conceptualized debates as
discussing issues and looking for solutions, it is clear that such debates would
encourage learners to learn how to think. This would also create a climate where
students feel encouraged to express their opinions (Soto, 1999).
Classrooms are arenas where the goals of civic education can be realized. But
for this to happen, teachers are required to actively engage students in discussions
of public issues, in making connections between complex democratic concepts and
their communities, in simulations of democratic processes and in linking service
learning experiences with civic outcomes (Avery, 2007, p. 32). This would mean
incorporating learning activities that are relevant and practical. If this is
overlooked, those arenas could easily become dormitories where students take naps
before they rush to their next lesson.
Franks views represented the views of many students who felt that learning
should include authentic activities, not just copying notes. For Frank, inviting guest
speakers such as a democrat or a politician so that we can know what we are
being taught would certainly enhance their political knowledge. Another student,
Okello, felt that it is by being immersed into the real world that he would grasp
what he learned in the history and government class; real life experiences were
central to his learning. He explained:
There in parliament there are activities that are going on like debating of how
to develop our constituencies and by going there, you are going to get a view
of what the parliament looks like and you are going to learn as you listen to
how business is carried out in parliament. We can also get people who will
tell us how the constitution is made in Kenya.
The need for authentic activities was also expressed by Keith who felt by using
simulation, students could create their own social world with real life experiences
in their classroom:
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I dont know how I can describe it. The activity of a judge many people
sitting there and a lawyer sitting there with his or her client. Yes, acting. I
would enjoy that so much.
Many studies done in Africa reveal that students sit and listen to whatever the
teacher says and speak only when they are called upon to answer questions,
individually or chorally (Arthur, 1994; Chilsholm & Leyendecker, 2008; Fuller &
Snyder, 1991; Prophet, 1995; Rowell & Prophet, 1990; Tabulawa, 1997). Teaching
practices have been reported as so authoritarian that they have rendered students
voiceless and powerless. Lectures where teachers give facts to students without
allowing students an opportunity to connect what they learn with their lived
experiences are considered irrelevant by students. Dewey and Dewey (1914)
rightfully argue that a child learns more effectively when s/he enters into the social
world.
Further findings reveal that authoritarianism is not only confined to the
classroom, but it is also present in most places within the school. Authoritarianism
aspects of the hidden curriculum were expressed through the use of prefects. For
example, the principal of Kapana High School explained that prefects act as the
students voice; however, they are also used by the school administration to quell
any dissatisfaction or grievances that students may have. Thus, on the one hand,
the prefects represent the student body and on the other hand, they act as the
administrations eye or police. In fact, the prefects act as agents of oppression
because they were used by the administration to intimidate and control the rest of
the students. They have the power to punish and to silence those who does not toe
the line. The existence of prefects is part of the unofficial or the hidden
curriculum that teaches students to remain in total obedience because there are
consequences if the reverse happens; it creates an atmosphere of fear among
students because they are aware they are being watched. This oppressive prefecture
system is a remnant of the British colonial system which is still practiced in some
parts of Europe. Writing about student voice in Europe, Davies (2002) points out
that student councils and committees are a surveillance mechanism that does not
allow students to move or see outside the traditional regulatory frameworks. Given
that some of these prefects are in charge of classes, one wonders how silenced
students feel, even in their classrooms.
In summary, all the findings point to the fact that there is no platform in history
and government classes where important controversial issues can be addressed.
The conceptualization of peace as the absence of direct violence and the discourse
of national unity are powerful weapons which are intentionally or unintentionally
employed to stifle debate that would speak directly to social injustices.
INDIGENOUS CIVIC EDUCATION CONCEPTS: PEDAGOGICAL POSSIBILITIES
As already mentioned, findings reveal that the teachers are committed to their
work; however, they work in a context that hampers the use of democratic teaching
practices while it sustains the use of traditional methods. In fact, the curriculum
developer acknowledged that it was difficult for the goals of civic education to be
186
realized because of the challenges that civic education teachers face, most of which
he attributed to curriculum development. The fact that the curriculum and
examinations are centralized, teachers are pressurized to teach to the test, which
means drilling students to memorize factual information for the sake of passing the
examinations. Thus, the findings are an indication that the history and government
course does not help develop learners critical thinking skills, but rather makes
them passive consumers of historical facts. To Samoff (2003), given that national
examinations shape curriculum, curriculum revolves around information to be
transmitted rather than developing skills and tools that would help students acquire
that information, generate ideas and craft critiques. Such learning based on this
curriculum undermines students participation as active members of their societies
because it does not promote values, attitudes and behaviours related to
participation in a democracy (Dejaeghere & Tudball, 2007).
Teachers also have to navigate through other challenges such as lack of
adequate training, lack of English proficiency skills on the part of the students and
lack of instructional resources. Asimeng-Boahene (2003) provides a stark description
of everyday realities of social studies teachers by pointing out that African social
studies teachers currently serve in positions that could be classified as splendid
misery or dignified slavery (p. 61). Can one, then, envision democratic pedagogical
and curricular possibilities in such a murky and complex situation?
In this study, critical constructivism is perceived as an approach that promotes
democracy and as an alternative to traditional methods of teaching. Constructivists
believe that when students receive information, they construct new knowledge as
they actively process the information received. To constructivists and critical
pedagogues, learning is not passive and its goals are emancipatory (Freire, 1993;
Kincheloe, 1993; McLaren & Lankshear; 1994; Watts & Jofili, 1998). This implies
that learning enables learners to express their views, present their problems for
inquiry and relate them to their lives (Watts & Jofili, 1998). This kind of pedagogy
is a way of thinking about, negotiating and transforming the relationships among
classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional structures of the
school and the social and material relations of the wider community, society and
nation-state (McLaren, 2000, p. 28). These theories have the potential for
transforming societiesKenyan society includedinto more egalitarian societies
and into less violent ones.
However, this raises several questions. In the face of all the challenges, is it
possible to translate these principles into practice in the Kenyan context? Would
policy makers, administrators, teachers, students, parents and other possible
stakeholders embrace the principles embedded in these foreign theories? Would
teachers embrace this way of thinking that seems to be in opposition with African
cultural beliefs and their own beliefs which are influenced by class, ethnicity,
gender and religion? How can teachers integrate some of the principles of these
theories and at the same time maintain culturally responsive civic education?
The possibility of infusing learner-centred approaches in African classrooms to
create spaces for dialogue is viewed only as a distant dream by many scholars
(Altinyelken, 2010; Coombe, 1997; Dembele & Lefoka, 2002; Fuller, 1987;
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WANGUI MBURU
Guthrie, 1990; Hardman et al., 2008; Moon, 2007; OSullivan, 2004; Rowell,
1995; Vavrus. 2009). While these scholars base their claim on the scarcity of
resources and the demands examinations place on teachers and students, there are
others who view principles derived from critical constructivism or critical
pedagogy as hegemonic and therefore should not be introduced to other cultures at
all. One of those critics is Bowers (2005) who argues that constructivists and
critical pedagogues impose their worldviews on other cultures and overlook how
different cultures contribute to forms of the intercultural renewal essential to
ecological sustainability , as well as to community and environmentally destructive
patterns (p. 35). To him, the philosophies of Piaget, Dewey and Freire, among
others, are more destructive than constructive. Following this line of thought is
Tabulawa (2003) who contends that the introduction of learner-centred approaches
are embedded in Western culture which encourages individualistic tendencies
necessary for individuals to survive in a liberal democratic capitalist society. To
him, these approaches only succeed in promoting the reproduction of capitalism in
periphery states, which contradicts African Indigenous knowledges. But Dei
(2010), who is an ardent supporter of Indigenous knowledges, argues that
education in the global era should provide learners with tools to enable them to
function in a global market. Dei (2000) further argues that Indigenous knowledges
are compatible with Western scientific knowledge and as such through daily
practices, societies import and adapt freely whatever from outside will enrich
their accumulated knowledge (p.73). To Dei(2000, 2010), African educational
philosophy does not devalue other ways of knowing but rather embraces the
coexistence of multiple knowledges.
Following this line of thought, I argue that it is therefore not impossible to adopt
critical constructivism pedagogical practices in developing countries as is believed
by many scholars. It is possible for educators to reinvent Western theories by
choosing what is culturally appropriate for African contexts. This is ably
articulated by Paulo Freire who argues that the progressive educator must always
be moving out on his or her own, continually reinventing me and reinventing what
it means to be democratic in his own or her own specific cultural and historical
context (Freire, 1997a, p. 308, as cited in McLaren, 2000, p. 31). In fact,
Bickmore (2008), for example, argues that there is no reason to assume that
dialogic elicitive pedagogies are unworkable, foreign or culturally inappropriate in
resource-poor or so-called third-world contexts (p. 448). Culturally appropriate
dialogues that relate to peace and democracy can easily be generated from African
Indigenous ways of knowing.
Indeed, Indigenous ways of knowing hold promise to promoting peace (Sharra,
2009). Infusing African collectivist humanism into the curriculum would directly
speak to some of the social injustices that breed structural violence, violence that is
masked both in the official and the enacted curricula. In most African
communities, the notion of being human (Ubuntu) is emphasized. Speaking of
Ubuntu as an African philosophy of being, Swanson (2009) notes that Ubuntu is
borne out of the philosophy that community strength comes of community support,
(emphasis in the original) and that dignity and identity are achieved through
188
mutualism, empathy, generosity and community commitment (p.11). This notion

of communitarianism, however, does not mean masking the social and political
effects that power has on peoples lived experiences, but it should be viewed as
a conscious attempt to reverse these effects in bringing together an
understanding of common investment of humanity inextricably bound up
togethera disposition in consonance with Ubuntu would mean becoming
receptive to others and other ways, while offering a generosity of heart and
spirit. It is centred on an accepted communal obligation to justice rather than
individual rights. It would mean a way of seeking inner sanctum that gives
rise to compassion, self-effacement, mutual understanding, and humble
spirituality (Swanson, 2009, p.11).
The fact that Ubuntu emphasizes communal obligation to justice holds promise
in addressing issues pertaining to structural violence. Although Western capitalism
tends to undermine collectivism by implicitly promoting individualism,
communitarianism has not been completely erased and can be revitalized by
introducing it in schools. As Dei (2010) points out, the wisdom and instruction
inherent in African folklore fosters a shared sense of identity and collective
belonging. For instance, some of the major themes that run through many African
folktales and proverbs point to the importance of showing respect, kindness and
communal solidarity. In addition, selfishness, exploitation and maltreatment of the
weak are vices that would never be tolerated and therefore through folklore,
children learned what was acceptable and what was not acceptable in the society.
For example, in African folktales the ogre symbolizes oppressive, evil characters
that society would wish to eliminate. Hence, in all the Agikuyu folktales, for
instance, ogres are eliminated and people and animals are rescued from the
ruthlessness of the ogres. Given that folktales carry moral lessons, evil must never
be given a chance to triumph. Therefore, through folklore, children were exposed
to issues of power and oppression and, they implicitly learned the importance of
fairness and communal resistance. These were important civic lessons that children
learned through non-formal education. These are stories that could be used in
todays classrooms to address todays problems. Analyzing such folktales and
connecting them with their own lives would help students see their world through a
critical lens and hopefully help them challenge the injustices in their world. The
folktales could generate healthy discussions on social issues and produce
knowledge that students can use to empower themselves.
Incorporating Indigenous knowledge into the teaching of civic education would
also necessitate utilizing community elders as a rich resource and a bridge between
Western conventional knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing. Indigenous
conceptions of civic education would directly address issues related to structural
violence that contemporary civic education fails to address. Indigenous knowledge,
above all else, embraces spirituality which directly speaks to injustices. Dei (2010)
defines spirituality in education as developing a Cosmo-vision and embracing a
critical humanism about interrelationships and connectedness, love and generosity
for humanity, the interactions of rights and responsibilities, the ties of the
189
WANGUI MBURU
individual to community (p. 44). Spirituality involves love, compassion, empathy,

social justice, etc. Therefore, promoting spirituality among African students would
be a move towards developing rounded citizenscitizens who would not be
passive or blind to injustice, but citizens who would look through their spiritual
lens and be able to recognize and address actions that do not promote Ubuntu
(being human). Spirituality does not promote individual interests but acknowledges
that the survival and the wholesomeness of an individual depend on the collective.
Mbiti (1969) summarizes this interdependence as follows: I am because we are
and since we are, therefore I am (p. 13). This theme is evident in many African
proverbs and scholars such as Dei (2010) and Grant and Simeng-Boaheme (2006)
illuminate the importance of teaching African proverbs in schools.
Indeed, Grant and Asimeng-Boahene (2006) point out that civic education is
expected to address issues found in students social worlds and for this reason,
proverbs would be an effective tool because proverbs are socially constructed
systems of meanings and understanding and philosophy that frame African living,
values, worldview and belief systemsproverbs are a collective wisdom that gives
guidance about living, seeing and being in the world (p. 20). For these authors,
proverbs would be effective for several reasons:
Proverbs provide insights into events and personalities and can explain a point
of view not amplified by the textbooks view.
Proverbs provide different points of view and pose many questions.
Proverbs encourage children to use thinking skills to strengthen their analytical
ability.
Proverbs help to explain and illustrate the complexity of cultures
Proverbs help bridge the cultural values gap between African and the western
cultures in an ethnically and racially diverse world. (Grant & Asimeng-Boahene,
p. 20)
Blending African folklore with learner-centred approaches to teach civic
education would validate African Indigenous ways of knowing as well as infuse
democratic/learner-centred pedagogical approaches in Kenyan schools. Suggesting
that learner-centred approaches are foreign and therefore should not be used in
African schools would be denying students the opportunity to learn to function as
global citizens (Banks, 2001). On the other hand, assuming that implementing
learner-centred pedagogical practices or adopting critical constructivism principles
is an easy task would be nave. It is an uphill battle.
Change is not easy and it involves struggle. If teachers are committed to change
then they must have the conviction that this is indeed possible. The word
possibility does not in any way guarantee solutions to the challenges that
continue to plague the teaching of civic education in Kenya; nevertheless, it keeps
the dream of a better tomorrow alive, for without dreams, the motivation of
working towards finding solutions wanes.
190
NOTE
To keep the anonymity of the participants, their names as well as the names of the
schools have been changed. The curriculum developer is identified by title, so are
the two principals. However, to make the distinction between the two principals
clear, they are identified by their schools; thus, the principal of School is identified
as Kapana principal and the principal of Lango High School is identified as
Lango principal. Students and teachers are identified by pseudonyms. Kapana
High School teachers are identified as Syombua and Hekima and Lango High
School teachers are identified as Aminata and Katungwa
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ASABERE-AMEYAW AND V. ADZAHLIE-MENSAH
ACHIEVING THE CULTURE OF

LIMITED AGGRESSION
THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION
INTRODUCTION
The twentieth century was a very violent period in the history of mankind, with
more human casualties than all the preceding centuries combined, mostly because
of the two world wars and a number of intra- and interstate conflicts. The total
number of casualties, both military and civilian, in World War I was about 37
million; between 50 and 70 million people died in World War II, while Operation
Desert Storm the Mother of All Battles (19901991) cost between 20,000 and
35,000 fatalities. It is also estimated that 75,000 Iraqi soldiers were wounded while
183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War have been declared permanently disabled
(Keaney & Cohen, 1993; Fisk, 2005).
Casualty figures from conflicts in Africa in the twentieth century show that the
war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) claimed 3.8 million lives. The
Ethiopian civil war claimed about one million lives, while the Eritrean war with
Ethiopia claimed 75,000. The Angolan civil war claimed 500,000; the Burundian
conflict claimed 300,000; while the Rwandan genocide accounts for 900,000 deaths
and an additional 1,000 people died due to prison overcrowding. In Algeria, the civil
war cost 150,000 lives and by 1989 the Ugandan civil war accounted for 30,000.
There were 1,000 deaths from the Ivorian civil war plus an additional 1,500 deaths
and a million displaced civilians from the four-month stand-off between the two
presidential rivals, Gbagbo and Ouattara, in the November 2010 presidential election
of which the international community recognized Ouattara the winner and the
incumbent, Gbagbo, declaring himself the winner and refusing to hand over power to
Ouattara. Two hundred thousand or more deaths resulted from the conflict in Sierra
Leone and 220,000 were recorded for the Liberian civil war. Somalia, a failed state
since the 1990s, recorded 550,000 deaths between 2000 and 2004. In Sudan, about
2,000,000 deaths were recorded for the main civil war between 1983 and 2002. This
excludes figures from the conflict between the Sudanese Peoples Liberation
Movement (SPLM) and Eritrea. The conflict between the Sudanese government and
the Justice and Equality Movement in Darfur accounted for 300,000 lives between
2003 and 2009. Just a few months into the second decade of the twentyfirst century,
political upheavals have claimed thousands of human lives in the North African
states of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Apart from wars, religious and ethnic conflicts
have cost thousands of lives in Africa. Africa has earned a dishonourable label The
Dark Continent as a result of insecurity resulting from numerous conflicts and

deadly diseases.
The deadly conflicts have continued in the twentyfirst century the world over.
The increase in terrorists activities, the greed in exploiting and use of natural
resources and degradation of our environment are resulting into preventable
conflicts and deaths. What can we do to deal with these problems and lessen the
conflicts and the terrible consequences? Is the answer in establishing Peace
Education in our schools and higher institutions of learning? Can we establish a
Culture of Peace that will make people resolve conflicts without resorting to war or
using the survival of the fittest approach? Can we even prevent wars? In this
context, we need to understand the principles behind peace culture and to shape the
role higher educational institutions can play in the development of that culture.
DEFINING PEACE
Peace has various kinds of definition. Reardon (1988) insists that peace is the
absence of violence. However, this seems to be too simplistic a definition but quite
popular. According to OKane (1992) such a definition is vacuous, passive and over
simplistic. It is seen as an unresponsive escape mechanism often resorted to in the
past. To Einstein (1968), peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of
justice, of law and of order. Some scholars have advanced the definition of peace to
show its complexity. For example, Woolman (1985), building on Galtungs ideas of
peace, defined peace in negative and positive terms. Negative peace, according to
Woolman (1985) is the mere absence of war. This kind of peace efforts, it is
asserted, may actually lead to future violence of greater magnitude (p. 8). On the
other hand, positive peace refers to the situation where in addition to absence of war,
there is the presence of justice, of law and of order. In this context, peace should also
facilitate the development of relationships which can restore and preserve community
values and spiritual needs which should take precedence over materialism. Reardon
(1988) sees global justice as the central concept of positive peace and indicates that
justice, in the sense of the full enjoyment of the entire range of human rights by all
people, is what constitutes positive peace (p.26).
Peace should be a social quality describing a society or a relationship operating
harmoniously and understood as the absence of hostility or the existence of
healthy relationships, safety in matters of social or economic welfare and the
acknowledgement of equality and fairness.
From the above, we get the picture that it is difficult to agree on the definition of
peace. In reality, there is no society without some kind of tension. There is what we
can term individual and collective tensions. These tensions could become overheated and turn to devastating violence. It is the power to effectively manage these
tensions that is mostly important for having and maintaining peace in the form of
peace culture.
PEACE CULTURE
In the preamble of the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), it is stated that Since wars begin in the
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ACHIEVING THE CULTURE OF LIMITED AGGRESSION
minds of men, it is in the minds of men [and women] that the defences of peace
must be constructed. Peace culture is a social invention (Boulding, 1998). This
invention was probably necessitated by the fact that, the 20th century was
characterized by a spate of ethnic, religious, communal and inter-state violence
which have disturbed the peace of various nations. The UN created a Culture of
Peace Programme (CPP) in 1994 for the promotion of standards which would
encourage and enhance peaceful co-existence. The programme acknowledged that
peace is more than the absence of war. Peace demands an enduring commitment to
sharing assets, while transcending particular and localized interest. At the eve of a
new millennium, a proliferation of regional, local, ethnic, religious and civil
conflicts and terrorism around the world demand the need for a global transition
from a culture of war to a culture of peace. In order to draw attention to the
challenges and issues of the culture of peace and to encourage international action,
the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1997 first proclaimed the year
2000 to be the International Year for the Culture of Peace and subsequently on
November 10, 1998, proclaimed the period 20012010 as the International Decade
for Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World.
The fundamental principles of the International Year for a Culture of Peace
continue and have been enhanced with the launch of the International Decade for
Culture of Peace and Non-violence among the Children of the World. The UN
General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Culture of Peace in 1999. The
declaration acknowledges that the responsibility to promote a culture of peace rests
with all members of the community. This includes parents, teachers, politicians,
journalists, religious bodies, intellectuals, institutions of civil society and those
engaged in scientific, philosophical, creative and artistic activities. Health workers,
social workers, managers at various levels and non-governmental organisations are
also included in the society in question. This acknowledgement cuts out a role for
higher educational institutions in promoting peace culture. A Manifesto for Peace
was also published in 2000 (see UNESCO, 2000). Creative management of
differences is at the core of peace culture (Boulding, 1998) i.e. it is not a culture
without conflict. It is a way of living together so that all members of society can
accomplish their human rights.
For the past decades, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and higher
institutions for learning have attempted to contribute to the institutionalisation of
peace culture. They have created programmes that deal in one way or the other
with peace education or peace culture. There are study programmes such as:
Human Rights, Multicultural, Intercultural, Immigrants, Peace and Conflict
Resolution and Peace Education that are taken as minor subjects.
The United Nations General Assembly declaration on peace culture notes that
awareness of issues concerning non-violence must become imperative for the
successful advancement of a culture of peace during the first decade of the new
millennium. The basic values and attitudes for life, as enunciated in the General
Assembly Resolution establishing 20012010 as the International Decade for a
Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World, are considered
by the UN to be elements essential for capturing the essence of non-violence. Chief
197
among the activities to promote non-violence or peace culture in all communities is

education - both formal and informal education that can provide the necessary
tools for acquiring the knowledge base, skills, values, attitudes and behaviours
associated with non-violence. Article 4 of the UN General Assembly Declaration
on Culture of Peace (1999) identified that education at all levels is one of the
principal means to build a culture of peace. Such an education has come to be
known as peace education. Peace education, therefore, began as a response to
violence and war. Originally, Peace Education focused on eliminating the
possibility of global extinction through nuclear war. But today Peace Education
addresses the broader objective of building a culture of peace. It seeks to
understand and eliminate the causes of conflict such as poverty and all forms of
discrimination, as well as to teach the skills of conflict management.
It is believed that peaceful resolution of conflict is not an innate human quality
but a skill that must be learned and practised from childhood. Peace education
therefore sets out to teach such knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to
bring about behavioural change that will enable children, youth and adults to
prevent conflicts and to resolve them peacefully and to create the conditions
conducive to peace. Peace education, as envisaged, will improve students selfesteem, develop their problem solving skills and avoid unpleasant behaviours. In
short, we can say Peace Education is an instrument that can be used to have wellguided men.
The World Education Forum in 2000 led to two major frameworks relevant to
the development of peace education programmes based on the assumption that
education is part of the problem as well as part of the solution. The first is the
establishment of the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE),
which was formed to coordinate the provision of education and how it can be used
for conflict prevention both as humanitarian response and for post conflict
reconstruction. The second is the Dakar Framework for Action which called for the
promotion of educational programmes in ways that promote mutual understanding,
peace and tolerance and that help to prevent violence and conflict. It also highlights
the importance of a systemic analysis of the relationship between education and
conflict, including attention to the role that the formal system has in exacerbating
and /or ameliorating conflict. One of the main implications of this is that it brought
up an urgent need to develop indicators for conflict-sensitive education systems
(see Smith and Vaux, 2003).
It becomes imperative for us to examine the role of education in peace and
conflict resolution. The process of educational reconstruction therefore needs to be
carefully considered as to whether to simply replace what was there previously, or
undertake fundamental educational reform. This has serious implications for the
long-term development of the education sector, especially in countries that are
emerging from conflict. Educational institutions are therefore expected to take up
major roles in the development of peace education. The INEE encourages this
development. For instance, it has over 500 members from centres in higher
educational institutions and international organisations working to promote peace
198
education across the world. However, few African higher institutions are enlisted
as members.
The Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace (1995) encourages revision of
educational curricula, including textbooks, bearing in mind the 1995 Declaration
and Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and
Democracy for which technical cooperation is provided by UNESCO upon request.
The Programme also encourages and strengthens efforts by actors (with the support
of UNESCO) aimed at developing values and skills conducive to a culture of
peace, including education and training in promoting dialogue and consensus
building. Higher educational institutions should take up the opportunity to play
leadership roles in revising and developing curricula to integrate peace education
into the mainstream of studies including education and training in promoting
dialogue and consensus building that are vital for human social development. In
achieving this, there is need to consider a number of themes and strategic actions.
Peace education curriculum of education in higher institutions should consider
growing migration, the effects of globalisation and the advancement of information
and communication technologies which have made people today increasingly
mobile. In Africa, as a continent, features a great cultural diversity. This diversity
is a rich asset for our societies but it also introduces new social and political
challenges. Identity questions are becoming more critical. We recently witnessed
reports of xenophobic attacks in South Africa. There are also challenges related to
stereotyping, racism, tribalism, intolerance, discrimination and violence which
threaten peace in various countries in Africa. Recently there were violent religious
disturbances in Nigeria that claimed hundreds of lives. Even in Ghana, which is
taken to be a relatively peaceful country, there are occasional violent clashes that
result in loss of lives. In many cases, the violence is a result of the inability of
people to solve simple issues. The negative consequences of such phenomena are
that development slows down and people continue to violate human rights and thus
create societies of injustice. Even many of our higher institutions are rattled with
violent crises. We often hear nowadays that students and lecturers are killed on the
campuses of some African universities. All these warrant a properly planned peace
education programmes for higher institutions that could deal with many of these
problems by intellectual and practical approaches to the programmes.
Suppression of micro cultures and inequality among people in society has
resulted in conflicts across the world and there is need to include global perspective
in which cultural pluralism is recognized as an ideal in a healthy state.
Multicultural education is one proposal and is becoming an organised field of
study. The historical roots of multicultural education lie in the civil rights
movements of various historically oppressed groups (Gorski, 1999). Multicultural
education is an approach to teaching and learning that is based on democratic
values that affirm cultural pluralism within culturally diverse societies in an
interdependent world (Ameny-Dixon, 2003). It uses equity-based pedagogy to
address the needs of students from different groups and cultures. As an option to
assimilation the scope of multicultural education needs to be broadened to include
democratic values, cultural pluralism within culturally diverse societies, national
199
and global interdependence. Values in multicultural education which has benefits

for the development of peace culture are summarised as cultural recognition and
civil discourse in a democracy (Ovando and McLaren, 2000); but specific values
include
increasing productivity because a variety of mental resources are available for
completing the same tasks and it promotes cognitive and moral growth among
all people.
decrease in stereotyping and prejudice through direct contact and interactions
among diverse individuals, groups and cultures.
increasing creative problem-solving skills through the different perspectives
applied to same problems to reach solutions.
increasing positive relationships through achievement of common goals, respect,
appreciation and commitment to equality among the intellectuals at institutions
of higher education.
renewal of societys vitality through the richness of the different cultures of its
members and fosters development of a broader and more sophisticated view of
the world.
Multicultural education in higher education is most important because

institutions of higher education are made of culturally diverse student and faculty
populations. Institutions of higher education should become models of peaceful
communal coexistence and as such become models for multicultural competence in
society and models for an interdependent world, as well as models for equity and
democratic values. Institutions of higher education whose leaders embrace these
principles of multicultural education and attain high academic standards become
models for public schools and for the communities in which the institutions are
located. The practices adopted by persons at the institutions of higher education
also become exemplary to other individuals and communities. Equity pedagogy
aiming at achieving fair and equal educational opportunities for all students,
including socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnic minorities in the microcultures are required for teaching in higher education (Ameny-Dixon, 2003).
Effective multicultural education must take place in a climate designed to respect
and encourage differences of opinions and perspectives (Winchip, 1997). This will
have huge dividends for the development of peace culture.
Much more important, however, if we are thinking about peace and equity
through the implementation of effective multicultural education then we must speak
about historic specificities of colonization and the necessity for decolonization by
way of anti-colonial education in the African schooling system. We recognize
conventional schooling and education as producing and reproducing of Eurocentric
epistemologies, epistemologies that work to make inferior relevant local cultural
resources of knowledge. This ultimately limits the possibilities for genuine,
solution-oriented African education. The way we rethink multicultural education
must include the different ways we come to know and understand our lived social
environment. Peace education must seek to dialogue with subversive pedagogies as
disseminated through counterinsurgent ways of knowing that personify community,
200
local forms of citizenry and the civic will of local African peoples. We ask then the
question: what does it mean for peace education to be installed within
institutionalised schooling and education and be devoid of the lived experiences of
the local African learner? We raise this seemingly simple question to invite a
reflective approach that cogitates the geo-political limitations and possibilities for
schooling and education in the African context. In the African schooling
experience, we cannot discount the experience of alienation, where African
learners come to know themselves as less than, as inferior, as abject, constituting in
a sense, a disciplinary form of violence of knowing the self and community. Peace
education as a means for social justice must embody Indigenous philosophies.
Peace education must speak about the colonial violence embedded within the
history of the text, rather than being psychologized onto different bodies, ethnic
groups or specific cultures.
Concerning the globalization of capitalist schooling and education, we must also
ask peace for whom and at what cost? In particular, we must note the perils when
we articulate certain curricula for peace education that ultimately come to be
constituted through imperial educational philosophies that have been entrenched in
capitalism. Such knowledging imbues a banking concept of learning, in which the
African learner goes through a series of repetitive exercises to then have to
reproduce as a ritual these dominant forms of knowledge (Freire, 1970). Such
learning/education presents itself as apolitical, neutral, objective, bias free and deraced. Presently, the underdevelopment and impoverishment of Africa have
been ongoing through particular discourses about peace and development. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the World Trade
Organization (WTO) deploy specific forms of governance guaranteeing the
continuity of the historical underdevelopment of Africa, which historically and
presently have resulted in violence. Admittedly, our disquiet with implementing
Peace Education within higher institutions of education concerns how Peace
Education comes to be articulated in the classroom, that is, the particular
theoretical frameworks which are accorded with discursive authority, power and
privilege. So, what are the consequences for African educators/African learners
when an Indigenous discursive framework articulates peace education through the
interest, through the terms of the African? The challenge for peace education is to
participate in social science research without compromise, to engage holistically,
communally in local cultural resources of knowledging. This would allow for a
coming to know the human experience of Africans beyond the standardized,
measurable, positivistic capillaries of educational research. Importantly, we must
caution that our goal is to coexist, not to co-opt, neither are we shouting that we
need a wholesale dismantling of our educational system. Instead, what we are
attempting to do is to bring voice to local pedagogical ways of knowing. Peace
education then is about the integration of different voices, the integration of
different knowledge systems while at the same time being cognizant of which body
has the material power to distribute educational resources.
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ACCESS TO EDUCATION: CHALLENGES OF EQUITY AND INCLUSIVENESS
Institutions of Higher Education should be models for democratic human values.

Exclusionist practices in access will be extremely negative to promoting peace
culture. Higher educational institutions in Africa need to become centres for
breaking the barriers of discrimination based on ethnicity, political affiliation,
gender, creed or religion. It is important to promote equity based access to
education in higher institutions. Equity based access should also reflect in the
diversity of staff, award of positions, promotions and recruitment procedures.
Leaders of higher educational institutions need to promote peace culture in all
aspects of institutional life and programmes. We should not, as leaders of the
intellectual community, perpetuate a culture of violence by sacrificing the values of
equity in educational access. Expansion of access to education is important. High
quality education provision is a peace dividend and the opposite is a deficit to
peace culture. For instance, in Sierra Leone an ethnographic study found that
young combatants of all factions, almost without exception, represent themselves
as victims of educational collapse (Richards, 1999, p.437). A quantitative study of
ex-combatants in Sierra Leone confirmed that lack of educational opportunity was
among the reasons ex-combatants joined the Revolutionary United Front
(Humphreys & Weinstien, 2004). In Rwanda, both formal and informal education
channels (textbooks, radio etc.) were used to stir up ethnic hatred (Obura, 2003).
Focus group interviews with youth in northern Uganda revealed that education was
their priority concern and the solution to the many challenges they face
(Womens Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 2007). These findings
provide hints that discrimination and lack of equity in education can be disastrous
for the development of peace culture.
DYNAMICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ROLE OF EDUCATION
The principle behind a culture of peace is that the more a society promotes,
protects and fulfils the human rights of its people, the greater its chances for
curbing violence and resolving conflicts peacefully. The cardinal principles of
human rights include respect for human dignity, tolerance, non-discrimination and
peaceful co-existence through the rule of law which are vital to promoting a culture
of peace. The development of human rights culture can promote the development
of peace culture. Human rights education should be more deeply integrated into all
forms of conflict analysis and response. Human rights education is needed to
integrate the actions required into teaching subjects and modelled through the
values and practices that operate within institutions.
According to the Plan of Action, human rights education is about imparting
knowledge, skills and attitudes directed to:
The strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms;
The full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity;
202
The promotion of understanding, tolerance, gender equality and friendship

among all nations, Indigenous peoples and racial, national, ethnic, religious and
linguistic groups;
The enabling of all persons to participate effectively in a free society;
The furtherance of the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of
peace.
Higher educational institutions need to provide opportunities and develop

systems that facilitate the promotion of these values. These can be accommodated
in liberal studies courses while others may prefer to develop specific programmes
for human rights education to be taken by students as general courses. Some
universities such as University of Ghana and Tai Solarin University have
established centres for human rights and the University of Education, Winneba
runs post-graduate programmes in Human Rights Education. UNESCO (2007)
noted that Human rights education is a way to understand more thoroughly how to
reform educational systems how to dispel trends of xenophobia and racism by
examining the past: what was left of the past heritage in matters of beliefs and
cultures.
BUILDING A GLOBAL CIVIC CULTURE
A culture of peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global
problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts and struggle for justice non-violently,
live by international standards of human rights and equity, appreciate cultural
diversity and respect the Earth and each other (Merryfield & White, 1996). Such
learning can only be achieved with systematic education for peace. This requires
education in global citizenship and citizenship diplomacy in conflict prevention,
management and resolution. A global citizen as one who is aware of the wider
world and has a sense of his/her own role as a world citizen; respects and values
diversity; has an understanding of how the world works economically, politically,
socially, culturally, technologically and environmentally. The global citizen is
outraged by social injustice; participates in and contributes from the local to the
global society. Besides this, the individual must be personally willing to act to
make the world a more sustainable place; and takes responsibility for actions.
There is the need for institutions of higher education to initiate dialogue and
establish centres to encourage cross-national discussions aimed at conflict
prevention, management, resolution and peace building. Initiatives should include
seminars and workshops for civil society groups and politicians, dialogue with
political leaders and academic conferences.
EDUCATION FOR NON-VIOLENCE
Higher educational institutions need to develop innovative programmes that equip

the youth with skills for entrepreneurship, invention and innovation. The problem
in Africa is that formal educational systems have been adapting too slowly to the
socio-economic changes around them and are held back not only by their own
203
conservatism, but also by the inertia of societies themselves. It is the responsibility

of higher educational institutions to change the topography of education and to
adapt quickly in line with socio-economic changes. African higher educational
institutions should ensure that their products are not the wrong kind in terms of
attitudes and value systems. Universities must produce graduates who are initiators
and not imitators. Universities are to be seen as producing the right calibre of work
force they should produce thinking nations but not buying and selling nations as
is the case in Africa. And that, we in educational institutions should know that
knowledge has value only when it has practical consequences for the individual
and for society and we should be informed by this when designing academic
programmes.
HIGHER EDUCATION AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST FEMALES
Many Universities around the world have female students outnumbering men, for
example, in the United States, from 1998 to 2008, the annual average increase in
enrolments was greater for women than men. In Canada, female enrolments
increased steadily over a ten year period; and in Ireland females the ratio of
females to males was 59% to 41%. In real terms of graduation, women outnumber
men in 75 of 98 countries (Bell, 2010). In most places in Africa, however, the
situation is entirely different, probably because of economic reasons. On top of the
economic consideration, illiterate African parents are genuinely concerned that
educating daughters could be harmful. For some parents in traditional societies,
educating a daughter is synonymous with favouring over indulgence in sin education may upset arranged marriages between families. Educated ladies might
refuse their parents choice of husband or discuss matters on an equal basis with a
man and this may go contrary to established customs. In such societies, parents see
their daughters only as future mothers and wives and schools considered as unable
to prepare them for their anticipated roles. To most of such parents, what the
school provides is irrelevant to girls specific and perceived needs. A genuine
concern also exists that educated girls will have more difficulty getting husband. In
communities where brides carry price, delay in marrying of the girls because of
long schooling, might pose a threat to their prospective mates. African Universities
therefore have to research and understand how to integrate traditional values into
broad international theoretical discourse for promoting female education and
empowerment. The establishment of Gender Units or Directorates in our universities
should be viewed as an architectural design to research and breakdown structures
that facilitate discrimination against females for education, job opportunities and
personal development. Equally, Universities must help in the breakdown of
structures that facilitate domestic violence practices which can develop violent
behaviour among children in adult life.
Gender Units or Directorates should be empowered to enable them regularly
organise seminars, conferences and community sensitisation programmes that will
complete ongoing peace education programmes being initiated by NGOs and other
international organisations on the African continent. It is essential that conscious
204
efforts are made to mentor females at workplaces for them to realize their full
potentials. This will enable them to complement the efforts of their male
counterparts in all spheres of life. Furthermore, females being less violent than
men, the more we have females accessing higher education and taking high
positions in the societies, the more their non-violent nature come to bear on
society.
CONCLUSION
The tragedies of the twentieth century which gave it the dishonourable label as the
century of war have crossed into the twentyfirst century. The second decade of the
century started with more violence in several places probably more than any single
year in recorded history. The year has already recorded deadly violence in Egypt,
Israel, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan and the Ivory Coast and recently, a reported
mutiny in Burkina Faso. The year 2011 seems to be extremely violent. Since the
launch of the Culture of Peace Programme (CPP) in 1994 for the promotion of
standards which would encourage and enhance peaceful co-existence, a number of
initiatives have been taken to prevent a repeat of the devastations caused by
conflicts in the twentieth century. The idea of peace culture became a social
invention or a social engineering tool to mobilise worldwide support for peace. The
decision to proclaim the period 20012010 as the International Decade for a
Culture of Peace was to help reduce the incidence of conflict. Despite these,
conflicts still plague Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Education has been identified as an instrument par excellence for promoting peace
culture. This is because evidence suggests that education can be both an instrument
of peace and of promoting violence. Higher educational institutions in Africa need
to be more proactive in integrating both formal and informal peace education
programmes into the curriculum. Peace education initiatives are needed to develop
the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to prevent violence and to promote the
non-violent resolution of conflicts. Programmes need to centre on multicultural
education, human rights education, equity in student admission and faculty
recruitment and promotion processes. Programmes should also address secret cult
activities which threaten peace and security on campuses. The establishment of
gender units or directorates should help address the roots of violence emerging
from gender role stratifications and domestic violence. Programmes are needed to
ensure that our education promotes socio-economic responsibility by developing in
both student and faculty the characteristics of global and democratic citizenship
and a culture of non-violence and peace culture so as to ultimately create the
conditions conducive to peace, whether at an interpersonal, inter-group, national or
international level.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The discussions so far make three core proposals imperative. We put up these
proposals for consideration and possible adoption as part of the contribution of
205
higher education institutions to building a culture of peace. That, higher education

institutions should:
take up leadership roles in promoting peace culture in Africa;
establish Centres for Human Rights and Peace Education (CHRPE) to lead
research and conduct high level analysis on the causes of violent conflict and the
conditions for sustainable peace and provide training, evaluation expertise and
expert advice to governments and non-governmental organizations engaged in
humanitarian intervention, conflict resolution and peace building. Each CHRPE
should engage in practical projects that build local capacities for sustainable
development, community engagement, governance and conflict revolution; and
integrate human rights and peace education into the core curriculum to build
understandings of peace and conflict grounded in the experiences of people,
places and history and in ways, which respect customary and local requirements
for sovereignty, development, legitimate governance and wellbeing.
The culture of peace rests firmly in our hands. African higher institutions must
work to contextualise peace education curriculum that will serve the purpose
creating and sustaining peace culture in Africa.
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MAWUADEM KOKU AMEDEKER AND THOMAS TACHIE YOUNG
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD COMMUNICATION

REVISITING THE INDIGENOUS METHODS TO MEET THE
CHALLENGES IN GHANA
INTRODUCTION
In his book on environmental impact assessment, Appiah-Opoku (2005) questions

the imposition of Western models of environmental impact assessment on the
developing world. He further, ascertains that as a son of a chief in Ghana he was
knowledgeable enough to write about Indigenous knowledge in environmental
impact assessment. Similarly, most of our students who were brought up in rural
Ghana have seen the elders practise environmental management and have also been
involved in cleaning and tidying the environment.
With the ever-growing population of our countries, our former practices
of environmental care are becoming inadequate to forestall degradation of the
environment. Thus, it has become imperative that more effective ways of
communicating environmental issues to people are adopted. The actions
recommended by several Charters on the environment require that people are made
aware of environmental issues and given information about ways to treat the
environment and also the steps to take to rectify environmental hazards. It is
known that what we put into the schools system invariably gets into the larger
society. Hence, training students to be acquainted with environmental issues
appears to be most suitable approach to getting information into the larger society.
Modern civilisation is constantly acknowledging its failure as it reckons losses in
environmental sustainability including decline in living standards, which are being
attributed to lack of control of the environment.
To foster environmental awareness and sustainability among countries and
communities, the Belgrade Charter on Global Framework for Environmental
Education outlined five main goals of environmental education as: (1) awareness
and sensitivity towards the environment, (2) knowledge of the individual about the
environment, (3) attitudes for willing to protect the environment, (4) skills of
identifying and forestalling environmental problems, (5) commitment to be
involved in creating a sustainable environment (UNESCO-UNEP,1996).
Indigenous science and environmental education had variously sustained many
communities until abuse of the environment under the guise of development
emerged. The term Indigenous science has been used by both the Western world
and the developing world. For example, Cajete (2000) talks about Native
American science and asserts that native thinking requires that all forms of life are
linked together just as all humans, irrespective of their ethnic groupings, are
bonded to geographical features of the earth, such as rivers, mountains, valleys, etc.
These features are to be respected and never defied. Similarly, in the African
context, each feature in the environment is considered as a living being. Thus, the
rivers, mountains, trees etc. were all considered as living creatures with human
qualities and hence when defiled, brought untold hardships upon the culprits and
society.
Other authors (e.g. Snively & Corsiglia, 2001) have written on Indigenous
technological knowledge, which questions the rationale of creating mass destruction
warheads and equipment. They noted that such weapons devastate environment
and intimated that such manoeuvres were purported to dominate and control the
environment. It is, however, not clear what moral and social values underlie such
activities.
STUDENTS INVOLVEMENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD COMMUNICATION
In this paper, we discuss the results from an exploratory study conducted by

teacher-trainees of the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. The study was
initiated as part of the involvement of students in developing an environmental
hazard vision for their local community. The first year teacher-trainees of the
Integrated Science Department were invited to participate in this study. The
students were asked to go round the community and identify environmental hazards
that they considered needed attention and also devise ways of communicating them to
stakeholders who have the capability of addressing the hazards. During their
interactions with community members, the trainees interviewed market women,
hospital workers and fisher-folks. The trainees also used checklists and field notes
to collect data on observed scenes in the community as far as environmental
sanitation was concerned and photographed scenes.
Results suggest that given the opportunity to contribute to the formal educational
programmes, the students would become more responsive to their learning needs.
In this case study, the students became more responsive to the environmental
sanitation problems of their local environment and at the same time they became
critical environmental thinkers. Together with the members of the community who
they interacted with, the trainees identified six areas of concern for environmental
hazards. These were inadequate supervision of sanitary workers, inadequate
number of employees, inadequate equipment and facilities for managing sanitation,
lack of structures to educate community members on environmental sanitation,
irregular cleaning and lifting of piled-up rubbish and, poor attitude of some
community members towards environmental sanitation.
The inadequate facilities identified included drainage systems, public places of
convenience, urinals and incinerators while they also identified litter bins, wheel
barrows, rakes and shovels as equipment needed to facilitate clearing rubbish and
cleaning the surroundings.
The local community members in reaction to lack of structures to educate the
populace on environmental sanitation doubted whether the University had
programmes to enlighten the community on environmental sanitation. Most of the
210
opinions expressed by the local community pointed the high expectations they had
of the University of Education to lead the educational crusade on environmental
sanitation.
The trainees also identified sanitation-related diseases such as typhoid fever and
worm infestation as due to poor hygienic habits exhibited by those who cook and
sell. They also attributed the high malaria cases in Winneba to the many stagnant
waters in choked gutters, which serve as breeding places for mosquitoes. In
exploring the views of community members on how to solve the environmental
sanitation problems, the suggestions that came out were that the town should be
zoned and sanitary inspectors assigned to each zone for effective supervision of
sanitation issues. Further, they suggested sanctions against non-compliant
community members. Also suggested were proper town planning with provision of
well arranged infrastructure (e. g. gutters, rubbish dumps and collection procedures).
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES
Most of the participants interviewed were adults who had stayed in Winneba for over
20 years. The interviewees admitted that there has been severe degradation of the
environment since they settled in the town. They attributed the degradation to
increased population and commercial activities. One person recalls that in the late
1970s most lands in Winneba were not inhabited and served as farm lands. Some of
such places served as garbage dumping sites, where garbage was allowed to
decompose and later become compost for farmers. It is reported that much of the
degradation is due to unchecked illegal development of settlement which have not
been approved by appropriate authorities. According to the respondents, houses were
crowded within vicinities due to disagreements and claims of lands between people.
This activity, according to them, really caused overcrowding with the consequence of
no space left for waste disposal. To worsen the situation, some people further opened
up small commercial retail shops which have resulted in the deposition of waste
around. As locations of buildings were not properly planned, there were no
provisions for drains and hence waste water was indiscriminately dumped around
buildings. Some of these waste waters came from bathrooms while others were
kitchen wastes. Some of the interviewees recounted their new experiences with
plastic waste from various commercial activities. The plastics are disposed of
indiscriminately and choke gutters, which are not swept regularly. Even when the
plastics and other wastes are removed from the gutters they are kept by the sides of
the drainage for another person to collect but these wastes finally end up in the
drainage again as they are not collected early enough. One of the interviewees said
that in their days, carrier bags were made of paper which was easily disposed of
either through burning or left on rubbish damps to decay. The people also mention
absence of sanitation facilities, such as household toilets. This they mentioned as one
of the reasons why black plastic bags are found in the drainages, as some people use
them to wrap faeces and dump them in the drains. According to an old man who was
interviewed, in their days there were not so many houses so always there was enough
space to site public pit toilets away from human habitation. Such places of
211
convenience were far away so as to minimise spread of the odour to the community
but close enough to be accessible to everyone.
Here, the main points intimated by the interviewees were that they used to
practise proper environmental sanitation until the upsurge of population and
increased commercial activities.
STUDENTS FIELD WORK, ASSESSMENT AND COMMUNICATION OF
ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION HAZARDS
The group of students who conducted their investigation at the Government

Hospital at Winneba decided to find out how much patients knew about
environmental sanitation. The people interviewed were adults, most of who had
knowledge about Indigenous practices as they had either come from the rural areas
and living in the Winneba Metropolis or live in the rural areas. The students
initially went round the hospital yard and observed pieces of paper, used polythene
bags, blood stained cotton wool and leftover food and, pools of stagnant water at
different locations in the hospital yard.
In an interview with people to find out why sanitation in the hospital was poor,
the interviewees noted the absence of adequate staff for picking the rubbish in the
yard, limited number of garbage containers and lack of facilities for draining the
stagnant pools of water, as some of the causes of the sanitation problem. A number
of suggestions came from people with Indigenous knowledge who indicated that if
the garbage could not be lifted regularly then a dump should be created and the
rubbish burned from time to time. There was a group which also suggested burying
the garbage which could decompose into compost for later use on the farms and
gardens. For the pools of water, a suggestion was made for the spreading of
paraffin (kerosene) on it regularly to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes. The
students then compiled their reports and gave copies to the hospital administrator.
In this report, the students made a number of recommendations to the hospital
authorities to provide enhanced services that would enable the hospital to improve
the level of sanitation of its environs. The most ingenious suggestion concerned a
call on the University community to provide academic leadership to the
community, especially the hospital to improve its environmental sanitation level.
This suggestion came about because the students noted that all the interviewees
they met at the hospital said they had never had organised education concerning
environmental sanitation.
The group of students, who explored the environmental sanitation of basic
schools in Winneba, identified irregular cleaning of toilets and urinals and
insufficient garbage containers as the major problem of environmental hazard.
While these students called for the regular cleaning of toilets and urinals and,
supply of more litter bins, they also noted that collaboration with the University
would help to provide sustainable environmental education to the pupils of the
basic schools. The students also compiled a written report, a copy of which was
given to the school authorities.
212
The students in this study have implied that limited resources in the community
have led to a lack of comprehensive government outreach to supply basic material
resources to help reduce the sanitation problem. Further, the students have implied
by their approach to communicating their findings that there is a lack of
comprehensive government outreach strategies to communicate environmental
sanitation hazards. The students have therefore settled on a meaningful dialogue
approach through interviews with people who otherwise may be considered lay as
far as environmental education is concerned. In an approach using both verbal
presentation and written report in communicating environmental sanitation issues
to some local communities in Botswana, Thakadu, Irani, & Telg (2011) noted that
different communication approaches (visual and verbal) were equally effective in
affecting the cognitive and affective abilities of the participants. However, our
students used mainly conversational approach to soliciting information on subjects
environmental sanitation awareness as well as and impacting their sanitation
knowledge to subjects. A society like ours in Ghana, which is becoming more and
more complex due to the introduction of modern information and communication
media, an integrated approach, seems appropriate. The study demonstrated our
students value of sharing information, a value, which has been labeled acquired
knowledge sharing and has been cherished in traditional societies in Ghana.
THE ROLE OF TEACHER-TRAINEES IN COMMUNICATING
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
The teacher-trainees involved in this study engaged in collaborative learning

activities that they organised around environmental activities (specifically
interactions between humans and their environment). Their visit to the beaches,
hospitals, lorry parks and markets assigned roles that would enable them play an
active role to better understand and internalize how the local communities
understand environmental sanitation. Moseley, Huss and Utley (2010) have found
that teachers experiences with issues regarding the environment enable them to
develop their confidence to teach ecological content. On the other hand, Stibbards
and Puk (2011) designed a teaching approach called ecological macro-models for
the use of their teacher-trainees. They found out later that this approach which is
collaborative allowed the trainees to make meaning for themselves in their
interactions with the biodiversity around them. In a survey carried out in two rural
communities in Uganda, a large number of the respondents attributed the
responsibility for environmental problems to the government and the local people
(Ferrie, Bettinger, Kuhar, Lehnhardt, Apell, & Kasoma, 2011). It should be the
responsibility of schools to introduce trainees to methods of communicating
effectively to their communities.
HEALTH HAZARDS COMMUNICATION
In Ghana, the responsibility of communicating risks of hazardous environmental

exposures has remained with health agencies such as nurses and doctors. It has
213
been observed that clear communication of environmental health messages to the

community enhances their environmental health literacy (Ratnapradipa, et al., 2010).
Further, environmental justice relies on successful public health communication
and the methods and style of effective communication rely on factors related to
explaining risk to the general public (p. 253). By this statement, Ratnapradipa and
colleagues imply that one communicating environmental problem should have
special qualities that would make the communication effective. Bier as cited in
Ratnapradipa et al., (2010) had earlier identified five characteristics of a health
hazard communicator as a person with trust, one who can raise awareness, educate
and reach agreement with people and induce enthusiasm in their clients with some
actions. These are the formal approach to environmental hazards communication
but there is no prejudice that the African had no means of communicating
environmental issues before the arrival of the Europeans.
Records of African scientific repertoire and knowledge about the environment
have been acknowledged by Semali (1999), who notes that African traditional
education did not only respond to governance but also to ecological literacy. The
implication is that African education ensured that parents schooled children on
agricultural practices, care of the environment and self-hygiene. Another author
(Abdi, 2011) argues that knowledge was a human project that develops by the
spirit and actions of humans. Thus, for African Indigenous knowledge systems to
have been suppressed and cowed to submission was a recipe for its stagnation. For
sure, no one is able to predict whether African Indigenous knowledge would have
survived the test of time, particularly noting the current conflicts and
misunderstandings plaguing the continent. All the same, one recognises that the
spirit that Abdi (2011) talks about in his philosophy of reconstructing Indigenous
knowledge cannot be ignored. It is upon such philosophy and inspiration we have
not lost all our values that our experiment of sending our students out to identify
and communicate environmental hazards to our community members thrives.
CONCLUSION
This study has shown that despite the complexity of modern Ghanaian society, our
students still cherish traditional values of sharing information through conversation
and interviews. In an attempt to satisfy modern trends, students have combined
traditional and modern approach as they used the traditional touch and documentation
through report writing. The usefulness of the approach adopted by the students is
that there is trust and credibility as subjects tried to give their views about
environmental sanitation practices as they also learn new ideas from the students.
Also, in the absence of formal education on environmental sanitation at governmental
level, it is expedient for the students to serve as agents of dissemination of the
message of environmental sanitation and risks of ignoring good environmental
practices through the Indigenous methods of collecting and sharing information.
214
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Appiah-Opoku, S. (2005). The need for indigenous knowledge in environmental impact assessment: The
case of Ghana. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.
Ferrie, G. M., Bettinger, T. L., Kuhar, C. W., Lehnhardt, K., Apell, P., & Kasoma, P. (2011). Assessing
community understanding of local environmental issues in two areas of Uganda. Applied
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Moseley, C., Huss, J., & Utley, J. (2010). Assessing K-12 teachers personal environmental education
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Ratnapradipa, D., Getz, T., Zarcadoolas, C., Panzara, A. D., Esposito, V., Wodika, Quilliam, D. N.
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Snively, G. & Corsiglia, J. (2001). Discovering indigenous science: Implications for science education.
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AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J.SEFA. DEI AND

KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
CONCLUSION: RE-VISIONING SCIENCE AND

INDIGENOUS EDUCATION IN AFRICA
MEETING FUTURE CHALLENGES
This chapter draws upon the broader philosophical and theoretical implications of
our understanding Indigenous science and science education in African schools.
Today, we are having to contend with the crisis of ideas and imagination as we
search for genuine educational options for young learners. African subjects
have always played a central role in the conception, generation, design and
implementation of knowledge. As already noted, it is through the mutual
interrogation of ideas, concepts, principles, symbols, cultural and social values that
the foundation of knowledge can be established. Tensions of the intellectual
identity and the clarification of what is science are not new. What perhaps is new
today is the bold and courageous attempts to claim and reclaim local/Indigenous
knowledges long downplayed, devalued or even dismissed in our academies
[schools, colleges and universities] as part of science education.
On-going debates about the Eurocentricity of Western scientific knowledge
and the positing of Westocentric/Eurocentric science as the only science is
worthy of note. Nonetheless, as already hinted, we must caution against constructing
a binary between Indigenous science and Western scientific knowledge. After all,
Western scientific knowledge is itself a form of local knowledge, born out of a
particular social and historical context. Engaging science in its globalised
dimensions help us to respond to the questions of how we create spaces for the
study of Indigenous knowledge as science education in schools. African educators
today have a responsibility to address the intellectual, ethical, moral and political
imperatives for [re]claiming the authenticity of our Indigeneity as valid and
legitimate sources of knowing.
We should reiterate that our objective in this book has not been to posit a strict
binary between Western science and Indigenous science. What we have sought
to trouble the hegemonic meaning of science to be inclusive of other bodies of
knowledge and for us as educators to see science as residing in social and cultural
bodies of knowledges, as well as the knowledge base of biological and physical
sciences. We have also complicated the pedagogy of science as carried out in the
conventional approach to science education. In effect, we see science in
mathematics and technology, social studies and the humanities, including literature
and the arts. We question the conventional methods of teaching science and discuss
science as a tool and a discursive approach to working with any body of
AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J.SEFA. DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM
knowledge. We want African learners to be adept in science education, including

the methods and approaches to the study of science as inclusive of Indigenous
ways of knowledge whether we are discursing the arts, literatures, social studies
and the humanities, biology, physics, mathematics or technology studies.
We ask what does it mean for an epistemic body, such as Indigeneity, of having
historical trajectories to resistance, of having counterhegemonic conditions of
existence, to have to claim the nomenclature of the dominant paradigm, that of
science? It is no secret that to claim a particular body of knowledge such as
science bestows discursive currency and that historically science has revealed
itself through coterminous classifications. Science, has been rooted through
positivism, which worked colonially to produce objective institutionalized forms of
knowledge. As educators, these are the historical conditions and challenges we are
faced with; to have to claim science not through the dominant space of
positivism, but to come to know science through these qualitative embodiments
of the Indigene. Perhaps we should recall as well, that the Indigene is temporal,
about ways of knowing through time and space, as historically in process, that
these ways of knowing may not be readily accessible to the curricula residing
within conventional schooling and education. To claim Indigeneity as science is
full of politics. We do not cry neutrality with our claims to and about this privilege
space of science. Instead we are strategically challenging historical boundaries
concomitant to the dissemination of knowledge through Indigeneity. So, in effect
we are contesting is what knowledge counts as science? We are asking other
questions as where does knowledge reside? And how do we come to know
knowledge? These epistemological questions concerning science ultimately speak
to issues of power, privilege, saliency and the embodiment of knowledge.
African scholars and students have tremendous in stakes in the pedagogy of
science through critical research. The insistence on the restoration on our past,
histories, cultures, heritages and holding on to a sense of place and identities in
struggles over the production, interrogation, validation and dissemination of
knowledge is vital to how we can generate and pursue science and technology
education for social development. Knowledge production has become a struggle of
permanent resistance for colonized/Indigenous peoples. We see this struggle in the
ways we make claims to the vitality and vibrancy of/in African music, drama,
folktales, cultural creations, architecture and other folkloric productions.
The effective teaching of science in African schools will require that academic
research be brought to bear on the making of social policy. It will also necessitate
that our universities and centers of academic excellence produce new and critical
knowledge that is in sync with histories, identities and future aspirations as a
people (see also Atabani, 2010). We need the creation of pan-African intellectual
communities that safeguard our rich intellectual traditions as significant sources of
knowledge for thinking through contemporary and future challenges and seek to
find solutions to pressing problems. This means that the link between science and
development cannot simply be theorized but must also be operationalized. Science
must be relevant to serve human needs. Science must identify with pressing
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RE-VISIONING SCIENCE AND INDIGNEOUS EDUCATION
challenges and seek out genuine and home grown solutions to problems. Local
peoples must be supported to identify with the knowledge of science
As educators and learners, we have own tales, experiences and stories about
how students approach science education and even how we teach science in local
contexts. We know how science has been perceived and how learners have often
been made to feel science is something outside the purview of their local
knowledges and ways of knowing. But, if as this collection has pointed out, we
embark on a rethinking and re-conceptualization of what is science and science
education we bring our learners and students home to the subject material. There is
the likelihood of easy identification with the material and a recognition that after
all nothing is alien about science. Our approach has been to conceptualize science
broadly to include the social and natural and also to recognize the multiple
dimensions of science in terms of social contexts and knowledges. We have argued
repeatedly in this collection that science is about practice, experience and
experimenting with knowledge. It is also about knowledge gained from careful
observation of environments. Science speaks to the society-nature-culture nexus, as
well as the physical and metaphysical realms of human existence. Science is not
solely the products of Western intellectual traditions. We cannot deny the
intellectual agency of African peoples and their knowings in the construction of
science. Science also alludes to the role of intergenerational transmission of
knowledge for understanding our complex human condition. The culture of an
academic scholarship should be broad and critical enough to recognize the
convergences and divergences, as well as the tensions, contestations and
contradictions in science knowledge across multiple geographical spaces and
contexts.
Throughout this text, we have conceptualized and engaged Indigenous
knowledge as knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of a particular land used for
everyday living, survival and social existence. We note that local knowledge on
the other hand, can be possessed by any group (not necessarily Indigenous to the
land) who have lived in a particular place/location for a period of time (see Warren,
1991; Lebakeng, 2010, p. 25). What makes something Indigenous is the longterm, uninterrupted occupancy of a place. With such understanding then Indigenous
science is a knowledge system (including technologies and practices) employed by
Indigenous peoples of a particular place/land to deal with human social problems.
Such science knowledge will specifically include knowledge forms embedded in
arts and crafts, cultural forms and social practices, folkloric productions, technologies
and the understandings of the workings of environments (climate, vegetation and
soils) and the interface of culture and society.
Increasingly, it has become necessary for critical researchers to trouble Western
science hegemony. In this collection, our intellectualism has been driven in part by
a desire and politics to subvert and complicate the dominance of Western
intellectual tradition. We have noted that there are multiple knowledge forms each
with their respective ways of knowing. In fact, the Western/European scientific
tradition is just one aspect of science knowledge. In other words, as Okeke (2005)
long ago noted, the West is one of the many producers of science (cited in
219
Lebakeng, 2010, p. 27). We see a particular responsibility for Indigenous scholars

and our institutions of higher learning in the promotion of Indigenous science.
Particularly in the colonized context, our academies cannot continue to do business
as usual stepped in Western intellectual traditions and epistemologies.
Focusing on the African context, Lebakeng (2010) rightly asks: how is
knowledge production in African institutions of higher learning producing relevant
Indigenous African knowledges and what are the epistemological paradigms
under-girding university curricula? (p. 27). There is a particular responsibility for
our institutions/centres of excellence to provide the necessary conditions for young
learners to cultivate, affirm and propagate our Indigenous science knowledge for
humanity in general. A failure to embark on such intellectual journeys holds
serious ramifications and implications for the continent. Development will only
emerge in a context where people are able to critically evaluate the knowledge
systems embedded in their histories, cultures and identities to offer counter and
alternative readings of our worlds and how we comprehend human challenges and
design futures. In effect, Lebakeng (2010) is troubled and questions why and how
the contemporary African university continues to operate as an extension of the
epistemological paradigms of the colonial order/power even in a supposedly
decolonized Africa. Unless we honestly address this question the way forward for
the continent will be fraught with difficulties.
Indigenizing our academies, calls for awareness of the enormity of the task at
hand. This is in part because the academy is itself seriously implicated and invested
in the colonization of Indigenous peoples. The continued production of colonizing
and imperial knowledges is no accident. It serves the interests of dominant
intellectual traditions. Western science has borrowed and appropriated from other
traditions of knowledge without giving credit or acknowledgement and then
masqueraded such knowledge as universal Western science. A lack of ownership
of such knowledge has led to local peoples viewing science as foreign or alien
knowledge. For some students the inability to relate such science knowledge to
their environments has served to alienate them from the prevailing processes of
educational delivery. Science then has become difficult knowledge. To arrest this
situation, we must critically examine the form, content and delivery of such
knowledges. There are lessons to learn from internally within our communities
regarding ways local and Indigenous peoples have resisted the imposition of
knowledges and blended their own ways of knowing with other knowledge. This
collection has shown how teaching of science can be approach in a way that
addresses some of these concerns. The how, what and why of teaching science
must employ local and Indigenous knowledge and languages.
It has been noted that colonized peoples whether in African, Asia, North
America have continually had to resist ongoing epistemicide and linguicide
(Lebakeng 2010, pp. 2425). In Africa, for example, European colonization and
the Arabization and Islamization of parts of the continent and the accompanying
discourses of conquest, domination and misrepresentation sought to devalue
knowledges of Indigenous African peoples. But the science and technologies of
Indigenous peoples have not easily succumbed to hegemonic Western scientific
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RE-VISIONING SCIENCE AND INDIGNEOUS EDUCATION
influences. In fact, many Indigenous peoples have always protected their

knowledges and heritage, as well as local cultural resource base. These knowledges
have never been abandoned; in some cases merely transformed and they have been
part of everyday survival strategies and lessons for living. Such local cultural and
physical resource knowledge includes songs, proverbs, folklore, environmental
knowledge and resources, etc., that have persisted through time carrying with them
deep systems of thought and intellectual understandings of the nexus of society,
culture and nature. They include understanding of the physical and metaphysical
realms of life and how we can use the knowledge system to counter emerging
challenges.
Lebakeng (2010) again speaks of an intellectual and political project that
accentuates the authenticity of the Indigenous as one that is not just combative but
more importantly liberatory (p. 25). An authentic Indigenous African intellectual
scholarship must genuinely respond to both mocking and misrepresentation of
Africa, its human condition and social realities. It must offer a counter vision and
alternative to the current statuo quo and affirm the capability of the African
Indigene to design their own futures through relevant knowledge production,
political engagement and social action. By authentic, we do not presume a purity
or something as approximately the real. We are speaking of the relevance of local
voices and epistemes, locally defined intellectual spaces and a claim to a position
of knowing by the Indigene, as one that must be accorded legitimacy and validity
in its own right. In order to move forward African scholars and scholarship must
recognize the interdependence of critical intellectual work and political and social
activism. Today, Indigenous intellectuality must necessarily be coupled with a high
sense of social awareness and political agenda in order to challenge, subvert and
resist the dominant/subordinate or conquered-conqueror relations in knowledge
production.
Claiming and teaching Indigenous science is not without cautions. Again, to
borrow from Lebakeng (2010) we, as African intellectuals (historians,
anthropologists, sociologist, educationists, historians and philosophers), must also
subject Indigenous science to serious epistemological appraisal (p. 26). We must
resolve the theoretical, conceptual, methodological and philosophical issues about
the identity of Indigenous African knowledge systems and what their ontological,
epistemological, axiological basis or foundations are as science knowledge. These
questions are particularly important given the on-going contestations and
contentions about African Indigeneity and Indigenousness.
Like all knowledges, African Indigenous science is not static but dynamic
knowledge. Such knowledge about Indigenous science needs to be documented and
taught in schools as part of science education. In so doing, we must acknowledge
cultural custodians of such knowledge who continue to pass on knowledge to the
young generation of scholars. Bringing Indigenous science into science education
will require a critical look at the structures and processes for educational delivery
in our schools. Schooling and education must be viewed broadly to include what
happens both at multiple educational sites, including school and off-school sites in
local communities, towns as well as the physical realms of daily existence.
221
Education must be taken to include all the options, strategies, ideas and practices
through which people come to understand their worlds and act within such worlds.
We need teachers to be properly trained in Indigenous knowledges. We need to
create spaces in our schools for parents, Elders, families and community cultural
custodians to come in as teachers. The curriculum for vocational and technical
subjects must be transformed to incorporate knowledge and teaching methods of
local artisans, craftsmen and women, cultural custodians of fables, folktales, songs,
proverbs and story forms, etc. as part of science education. Teaching Indigenous
science will also have to recognize the social-political and spiritual contexts of the
ways of knowledge production, interrogation, validation and dissemination. School
and community relations have to be restructured in such a way that places
schooling within communities and also allow communities to have easy access into
schools.
We have called for the pursuit of science and science education in the classroom
as everyday practice and activity. The method and methodology of science
education must be broad enough to engage communal and communities ancestral,
cultural, historic and experiential knowings. Africans have Indigenous conceptions
of mathematics, science and technology education, including understandings of the
laws of nature, geography, physics, biology and nature. We have systems of
mathematical thought, social processes of understanding the human body and its
place in nature, the spiritual and metaphysical realms of everyday existence.
Infusing such knowledges in science education offers a more comprehensive
knowledge base and grounding for the contemporary learmer.
REFERENCES
Atabani, R. (2010). The political process in Sudan and the 2011 Referendum. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos.
1 & 2, pp. 4245.
Lebakeng, T. G. (2010). Discourse on indigenous knowledge systems, sustainable socio-economic
development and the challenge of the academy in Africa. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos. 1 & 2, pp.
2429.
Okeke, T. (2005). Is there one science, western science? Africa Development, XXX(3), 2034.
Warren, D. M. (1991). Using indigenous knowledge for agricultural development. World Bank
Discussion Paper 127, Washington, DC.
222
CONTRIBUTORS
Francis Ahia did his Bachelor and Master degree in mathematics at Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana and Ph.D. in
mathematics at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. At present Ahia is a
Senior Lecturer and Associate Director of the Transitional Year Programme at the
University of Toronto.
Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah is a lecturer at University of Education, Winneba in
Ghana. His research interest areas are Human rights and conflict resolution and
management. He is currently a Doctoral Student of University of Sussex in UK.
Richard K. Akpanglo-Nartey is a Science Educator. He has completed his B.Ed.
(Science) (Hons) and M.Phil. (Science Education), at University of Education,
Winneba, Ghana
Mawuadem Koku Amedeker is an Associate Professor in Science and Technology
Education at the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. He is currently the
Dean of the Faculty of Science Education. His teaching and research activities
focus on issues concerning science education, environmental issues and African
Indigenous science knowledge.
Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw is Vice-Chancellor at University of Education, Winneba
in Ghana, West Africa. He is a Professor of Science Education. He publishes
extensively in Fishery Science, Environmental Education and Issues in African
Science Education. His research interests are Fish stock assessment, Environmental
Education, Contextualization of the teaching of science.
S. J. Ayelsoma is a Science Educator. He has completed his B.Ed. (Science, Hons.)
and M.Phil. (Science Education), at University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
Dorian A. Barrow, Ph.D., Florida State University, has been in science education
since the 1970s. He taught high school science in Belize for ten years and was in
teacher education there at the University of Belize for another twenty where he
served as lecturer, academic vice president and provost. He currently lectures in
science education at the School of Education, University of the West Indies, St.
Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago.
Solomon Belay was born and raised in Ethiopia. He did his undergraduate degree in
Biology and taught the subject for 10 years in secondary schools. He, then, worked
for Sabri Development Institute while doing an online specialization course on
Education and Social Development from FUNDAEC, Colombia. After doing his
MA in Curriculum and Instruction from Addis Ababa University, he was a lecturer
and the coordinator of the Community Based Education programme in Jimma
University, Ethiopia for three years. Currently, he is a doctoral student in Ontario
223
CONTRIBUTORS
Institute for the Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research
focuses on science education and spirituality.
George J. Sefa Dei is Professor of Sociology and Equity Studies, Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). He has published
extensively in the area of Indigenous Knowledges and anti-colonial thought. His
latest sole-authored/ [co]-edited books include: Teaching Africa: Towards
Transgressive Pedagogy, Springer Publishers, New York, 2010; b) Fanon and
Education: Pedagogical Challenges, (co-edited with Marlon Simmons) Peter Lang
Publishing, New York ,2010; c) Fanon and the Counterinsurgency of Education,
Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2010; d) Learning to Succeed:
Improving Educational Achievement for All, Teneo Press, New York, 2010 and
e) Indigenous Philosophies and Critical Education. Peter Lang Publishing, New
York, 2011. He is also the Adumakwaahene of Asokore, Koforidua and in the New
Juaben Traditional Area of Ghana. His stool name is Nana Sefa Atweneboah I.
John K. Eminah is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Science Education,
Winneba, Ghana. He worked recently as an Associate Professor in the Umaru
Musa YarAdua University, Nigeria. During his tenure there, he discovered a new
Redox reaction involving zinc and concentrated sulphuric acid. The discovery has
since been published in the September 2009 issue of the School Science Review.
His research interests encompass curricular, gender and cultural issues in science
education.
E. Fredua-Kwarteng did his undergraduate at education York University, Toronto,
Ontario; double majoring in social science and mathematics. Along with this, he
completed a three-year bachelor of education programme with a speciality in
mathematics, science and technology. After that he pursued masters degree in
mathematics education in the same university. He taught in Toronto for a short
period of time and then went to Nunavut, Canadas new territory, where he taught
and also administered a high school. E. Fredua-Kwarteng is current completing his
doctoral degree in education administration at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education (OSIE) of the University of Toronto.
Wangui Mburu is a teacher with the Toronto District School Board. Before
migrating to Canada in 2002, she had taught in high schools and post-secondary
institutions in Kenya. Wangui has a M.Ed. in Second Language Education (SLE)
from the University of Toronto and she has recently completed a Ph.D. in
Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development from the same university. Besides
her M.Ed. and Ph.D. programmes, she also completed a collaborative programme,
Comparative International Development Education (CIDE), because she has keen
interest in international development, particularly in the area of education. Her
research interests include peace education, diversity and equity in education, antioppressive education and Indigenous knowledges.
224
CONTRIBUTORS
Wanja Gitari is an Associate Professor of science education at the University of

Toronto. She is cross appointed between the Transitional Year Programme and the
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Some of Professor Gitaris
funded research has investigated the relationship between certain elements of
everyday knowledge of natural phenomena and the content of school science. The
overall goal in her research and teaching is to promote scientific creativity in
everyday life, through science education.
Kolawole T. Raheem worked as a Senior Researcher in the University of Jyvskyl,
Finland for more than a decade before becoming the Deputy Director of the Center
for School and Community Science and Technology Studies (SACOST) in the
University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. He is a founding member of the Board
of the Centre for Environmental Science Education (CESE), Lagos State
University, Nigeria. Professor Raheems special areas of research are;
environmental education, waste management, Indigenous science knowledge and
production of contextualised materials for teaching and learning science in West
African schools. He is also a consultant to Non-Governmental Organisations
involved with environmental issues.
Thomas Tachie Young (PhD) is a lecturer and researcher at the University of
Education, Winneba, Ghana. He is the Co-ordinator of Programmes in the Centre
for School and Community Science and Technology Studies (SACOST),
University of Education, Winneba. He has special interest in environmental and
Indigenous science research and studies and also an expert in learning styles for
assessing students preferences in basic schools. Dr. Tachie Young is the current
West Africa representative of International Organisation of Science and
Technology Education (IOSTE) that seeks to encourage the peaceful and ethical
use of science and technology in the service of mankind.
Kodjo Donkor Taale (Ph.D) is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of
Science Education, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. He has completed his
B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics, M.Sc. in Physics, M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Science Education.
225

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Contemporary Issues in African Sciences and Science

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN AFRICAN SCIENCES AND

ISBN: 978-94-6091-700-4 (paperback)

Published by: Sense Publishers,

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved 2012 Sense Publishers

1. Introduction: Introduction to contemporary issues in African

2. The question of Indigenous science and science education:

3. Engaging scientific activities to build endogenous science and lay

4. Language proficiency and science learning

5. Childrens Indigenous ideas and the learning of conventional science

6. Science student teachers attitude towards improvisation

7. Beliefs about the nature of science held by African teachers

8. Gazing mathematics and science education in Ghana: Ye asisi yen

9. Culture, identity and science in African education: the relevance

10. Ethiopia survives: Reintegrating our spirituality and culture into

11. Indigenous conceptions of civic education: Reinventing the past

12. Achieving the culture of limited aggression: The role of higher

13. Environmental hazard communication: Revisiting the Indigenous

14. Conclusion. Re-visioning science and Indigenous education

development happen. The outcome will be the promotion of creativity, innovation

understanding of what is science. This position is relevant if we are to challenge

The apprenticeship mode of training, story telling, observation and repeated

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI

The purpose of this book is to contextualize Indigenous science and science

Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw et al.,(eds.), Contemporary Issues in African Sciences

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

Among the ways to counter-vision contemporary African education, one can

socio-cultural and political milieu of producing scientific knowledge. Local

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

broad terrain of science education for discursive emphasis. At this juncture, we

Spirituality is not organized with a particular religion nor is it affiliated to

Studies of African Indigenous knowledge systems attest to how the physical

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

transformation. However, as amplified by Gyu-Boake (2001), the Akosombo dam

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

We engage a discussion of the complex issue of spiritualism and science

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

realized by linking the scientific study of teacher beliefs to teachers classroom

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

In looking at some of the most current works pertaining to science education, a

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

author, inquiry is a process to engage with a scientific question, participate in

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

The current literature also cites technology as an important tool in teaching

Missing from the foregoing analysis is an understanding of the Indigenous

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

A number of scholarly works in and on Africa have problematized science and in

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

knowledge might be integrated in South African education. Le Grange (2007)

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM

THE QUESTION OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE

community. But more importantly, it is constituted as a space for learners to openly

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Francisco Villegas, Yumiko

AKWASI ASABERE-AMEYAW, GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND KOLAWOLE RAHEEM