Rethinking Multicultural Science Education: Representations, Identities, and Texts

The last 15 years have seen a substantial increase in the interest in the relationship between science and culture, particularly the possibilities and problems associated with science teaching in culturally diverse contexts. One central element in the debates arising in this area concerns the way school curricula in general and science curricula in particular should respond to cultural diversity, especially the presence in science classes of non-Western, Indigenous, and minority group learners. Within this "crisis of narratives" (Lyotard, 1984, xxiii) some authors such as Good (1995) and Loving (1995) have argued that since science is universal, the concept of multicultural science education is highly problematic. In contrast, many authors believe that Indigenous and minority groups have their own knowledges that can contribute to scientific understandings, their own unique ways of knowing the world, or indeed their own kind of science (e.g. Aikenhead, 1997a, 1997b; Christie, 1991; Gordon, 1990; McKinley, 1996; Ninnes, 1994, 1995, 1996; Roberts, 1998; Snively & Corsiglia, 1998).