TO EVERY SCHOOL-GOING CHILD
2.6 WHAT COUNTS AS SCIENCE EDUCATION
An education that provides students with the knowledge and dispositions to struggle against the variety of oppressions will ultimately help towards creating a more just and equitable society - on other words an education towards social justice (Gutstein, 2003). Such an education requires taking of differences seriously so that the difference they make and to whom can be seen - though the long-term effects of institutionalised oppression. Difference has to be understood as power-laden social constructs reflecting social position and containing powerful social meanings. In a society where structural inequalities are the norm being Black, female, queer, poor, language 'deficient' etc.
means being less than. Thus, this demands examining head-on the existing, prevalent systems of oppression and means being prepared to see, hear and feel the emotions that accompany the variety of oppressions - both institutionalised and internalised (Kohli, 1996). However, as hooks (1994) reminds us this is a scary arena for teachers because it could mean losing control of the classroom:
'The unwillingness to approach teaching/rom a standpoint that includes awareness o/race, sex and class is often rooted in the/ear that classrooms will be uncontrollable, that
emotions and passions will not be contained' (p39).
Classrooms, however, are not spaces where conflict and emotions are engaged with safely.
Educators try to avoid crises and foreclose stuck places in order to maintain control over what students learn and how they behave (Lather, 1991, P138).Itwould be safe to say that conflict and emotions that trigger crises and stuck places in the classroom are ruled out of existence as soon as they make an appearance through the teacher's authority, the existing school rules and regulations and the school ethos. In South Africa it is the preoccupation with effectiveness, efficiency and performance that continues to be that, which counts as education. However, if we are serious about teaching and educating for democracy and social justice then we need to be concerned with
differences in our classrooms and be prepared for the consequences of taking those differences seriously (Kohli, 1996, p 12).
and incorporated into explanations where the sole aim was the consolidation of the position privilege of the European male at the top of gender, class and race hierarchy as natural and legitimate. Science provided evidence to override any notions about the equality of all human beings (Norman, 1998).
Biology has played a central role in the construction ofrace. Norman (1998) notes that science's construction of race as biological in the eighteenth century occurred initially through Lineaus' taxonomy. Lineaus, the father of taxonomy, in defining human races taxonomically and gave scientific credibility to racist beliefs thus changing them to scientific facts. In hisSystema naturae published in1758 (Norman, 1998, p 367) he distinguished betweenHomo sapiens a/erandHomo sapiens europeanus. Homo sapiens a/erwho was the Black African was described as being ruled by caprice andHomo sapiens europeanus,who was White European, was said to be ruled by custom.
This construction of race was further consolidated through the evidence provided by cephalic indices and other quantitative measures - used to validate racial superiority and inferiority;
craniometry provided the data for polygenic notion that different races had diverse origins. In this way racial prejudices were expressed through scientific terminology allowing for validation through dispassionate and rational scientific inquiry. Apartheid in the twentieth century in South Africa used this biological construction ofrace to legalise its policy of racism.
Science according to Norman (1998) also provided the basis and justification for gender
stereotyping and discrimination with the female body being described as incomplete and deviant by Munro who was the leading anatomist in the middle of the nineteenth century. This description was obtained through using the male body as the only standard of measure. Anatomists constructed the female physiology to support only the idea that the primary social function of women was
reproduction and childbearing. Craniometric data substantiated the intellectual inferiority of women; physical, intellectual and moral weakness and deviance of women, as compared to the physical, intellectual and moral perfection of the upper-class male, provided the groundwork for curtailing women to a domestic existence and for her continued protection and control by men.
Patriarchy was further entrenched through the cause of disease that was used to explain female weakness.
Feminist philosophy claims, according to Applebaum (2001), that reason is constructed as male or masculine. Reason or rationality has been developed in ways that exclude women from the public sphere and devalues notions of femininity such as emotion and intuition and the nature of women.
The notion of reason needs to be understood as a set of gendered practices that have assumed a universal status. In modern times reason has been defined in opposition to the feminine in ways that excludes transcends and dominates the feminine and characterises women and their concerns as, irrational and material. In tying reason to masculinity, maleness validates patriarchy and its
dominance and hegemony in male-female interactions and in the power afforded to males within a fluid continuum of race.
In the late twentieth and early twenty first century science has retreated from its earlier aggressive pursuit of legitimising particular notions of race, class and gender. Ithas however, adopted a
position of silence on these issues. Does the silence mean that these issues are outside the legitimate scope of science or is the silence part of the continued dominance of a hegemonic Whiteness? The silence extends to the works of the few mainstream scientists such as Gould and Haraway -
scientists who have consistently questioned and opposed scientific racism and sexism - their works remain on the margin of legitimate science discourse (Norman, 1998).
In science education only certain groups have been privileged in the curriculum through selective inclusion and exclusion of material and through the teaching of science as a neutral subject.
Critiques of science from feminist, antiracist, postcolonial, poststructural and queer perspectives show that real science is defined as the only science that originated in the Western/White world (Harding, 2000; Lee, 2001); only men were considered capable of thinking scientifically
(Kumashiro, 2000); science asks only certain questions and is used in ways that primarily benefits certain racial and socio-economic groups in society (Harding, 2000); science has different material and political consequences on different populations, justifying the privileging of certain groups and the marginalisation of others (Harding, 2000; Kumashiro, 2000; Lee, 2001); science normalizes only certain ways of being - such as when it talks about sex/gender in certain terms thus reinforcing the idea that there are only males and females and nothing else although significant numbers of human beings are intersexed ; and progressive educators maintain the privileging of certain groups in society when they require students think scientifically, objectively and rationally (Kumashiro, 2000). This critique reveals science as contributing inherently to the various forms of oppression in today's 'historically-present' global society.
Research in discrimination and science education has reviewed multi/cultural paradigms
(Aikenhead (200 I), Atwater (1996), Cobern (1998), Costa (1995) Jegede (1999), Krugly-Smolska (1995), Ogunniyi (1995), Pomeroy (1994), Stanley and Brickhouse (2001), Cobem and Loving
(2001); and socio-cultural perspectives (Cobern, 1998); multiscience perspective (Ogawa, 1998);
social constructivism (Cobern, 1998); sociotransformative constructivism (Rodriguez, 1998 );
antiracist and critical multicultural science education (Hodson, 2000) and feminist science pedagogy (Harding, 2000; Barton, 2003; Mayberry, 1998) - with a view towards an inclusive science education. The research, while recognising gender, class, racial, language, cultural etc.
inequalities, remains located within the context of how to improve science education while continuing to ignore/relegate to an invisible status the social discriminatory conditions that produced and perpetuate not only discrimination in science education specifically, education in general but also within the wider community and society. In instances where the research claims a critical focus the domestication of critical enterprise also serves to perpetuate existing
discrimination. This occurs through the prime focus being that of including the discriminated without challenging and disrupting the extant roots of discrimination in the discipline of science or its practice and justification of social and other injustices. In South Africa the research in science education advocates that improvement in poor science performance will occur through increased resource provision for those who were most disadvantaged during apartheid. Poor performance is seldom linked to issues of social injustice and discrimination in science education both as a field of study and of practice. In so doing the attempts to improve science education remain located in the realm of reproduction of existing discriminations - for science education, education generally and the discriminated human condition within local, national and global contexts. This is also
compounded by the lack of practical discussion of ways classroom settings can be transformed to make learning experience/s more inclusive (hooks, 1994).
The research into the nature of science in science and science education has scope for critical appraisal into where science comes from; what constitutes science; whose science is learned; whose science dominates; and why. This critical aspect however has not become part of any such research that still remains locked within an inquiry approach - even though there is an acknowledgement of the inherent political, social and cultural component of the enterprise of science and science
education (Bianchini and Colbum, 2000).
In talking about inclusive science Bianchini, Cavazos and Helms (2000) draw attention to
researchers calls for making science courses more attractive and inviting to marginalized students such women, minorities etc; other researchers advocate transformation of science content and pedagogy to address the interests and experience of all students of science; yet others suggest the
use of a female-friendly model! non-sexist culturally inclusive model!liberatory model! inclusive practice education model.
The female-friendly model of curricular and pedagogical transformation proposed by Rosser (1995) seeks to highlight and eliminate androcentric and ethnocentric biases in science curriculum and pedagogy. Through developing and using alternative instructional techniques and presenting a holistic and global view of science content the creative and interactive relationships between
scientists and their experimental subjects would be revealed; science done by women and people of colour would also be highlighted to illustrate and confirm that alternative forms of research together with interdisciplinary, qualitative and socioculturally situated problems can contribute to success in science. Rosser's model however remains located within the dominant science education research enterprise of improvement through inclusivity. The relationship between the socio-cultural and politico-historical and continued existing inequalities and discrimination in and through science education itself continues to be ignored by Rosser and proponents of various other inclusive models.
McCormick's (1994) non-sexist model works towards restructuring the whole of education to create a gender balanced and culturally inclusive system. The model also looks at a reconstructed science curriculum and instruction that includes the integration of gender, race, ethnicity, social class and age; the creation of interdisciplinary units; accommodation of different learning and thinking styles;
and the use of instructional strategies that attended to the needs and values of girls and women.
Barton's (1998) liberatory model of inclusive curriculum and instruction model calls for the construction of a liberatory education as a means to achieve scientific literacy that she describes as authentic, useful and relevant to all students. Liberatory education in science 'is based on the recognition that teachers and students are agents and actors who actively shape and reshape their own understanding ofthe world and themselves from historically and culturally determined standpoints' (p ix). Barton (1997) asks' What is the purpose ofteaching science to students,
if
the result is they understand it, but continue to remain oppressed by it? Can students be taught to understand the content, culture, and practice ofscience including its hidden agenda' (p145).Barton's (1998, 2003) model calls for a re-creation of science education where the teacher's role is to assist the students to analyse the role of science in society and their personal lives; create novel and diverse representations of science; and investigate the intersections of and the contradictions between their lives and the traditional portrayals of science so that bridges can be built between science and (marginalized) youth.
For Mayberry (1998) a more democratic and liberatory inclusive science education requires an understanding of the social and political implications embedded within pedagogical approaches.
Without such an understanding science teaching strategies will work to sustain existing relations of power in science communities and maintain the specific values, beliefs and behaviours that impede progress towards achieving a more equitable and just society - in which the science community could be more diverse.
Bianchini, Cavazos and Helms (2000) constructed four continua in their own proposal towards an inclusive science curriculum and practice. The first continuum looked at science teachers and scientists' perceptions of their gender and/or ethnic identities as enabl ing or constraining their career paths; the second looked at the nature of science; the third at perceptions of students' experiences in science education; and in the fourth continuum science teachers and scientists' reports of non-traditional science content and diverse instructional strategies. These continua were then used to call 'for professional developers and science education practitioners to explore the influence ofgender and ethnic identities on scientists and science teachers' professional lives; to engage in open and critical conversations aboutfeminist scholarship ofscience; and to examine inclusive educational practices through the lens ofstudents' interests and experiences'(p 538). In this way a balance amongst the variety of views could be achieved and the suggested educational practices that emerge can then be used to assist to bring the science education community closer to a goal of a just and equitable science education for all students.
As Bianchini, Cavazos and Helms (2000) stateeach model challenges the traditional representation ofscience as it is enacted in kindergarten through to university classrooms and advocates a
transformation ofcurriculum and instruction to provide teachers and students with opportunities to create new and inclusive representations ofscience' (p 518, my emphasis) - within the existing dominant framework of science. This attraction and invitation to science, the so-called
transformation of science content and pedagogy and the use of a 'female-friendly' modell non- sexist culturally inclusive modellliberatory model/ inclusive practice education model advocated by researchers in science remains focused on inclusivity in science through science and as such does not even begin to address the socio-historico-cultural-political issues that have given birth to and maintain existing inequities of the historically marginalized.
The domestication of the critical perspective in science education is evident in Taylor and Cobern' s (1998) explanation of their view of a critical science education. For them a critical science
educationoffers the empowering prospect that students will learn to adapt their local cultures to scientific ways ofknowing, believing and valuing AND learn to adapt science to their own cultural ways ofknowing, believing and valuing (p 207). Such a critical science education becomes possible through critical science curricula that:
• Develop a sensitivity to and an appreciation ofthe natural sciences as a value laden enterprise;
• Recognise and acknowledge contributions to the natural sciences by different cultures, religions and societies; and
• Identify and deal with biases and inequities implicit in and imported through the natural sciences (p 207).
This critical enterprise in school science is achievable through an equitable resource distribution at the societallevel; through equitable science curricula at the school level; through the learner's voice and sense of agency that is obtained though the use of the learners/local language; through including women in science that is through gender equity and inclusivity (characteristic of the first and second waves of feminism - Barton, 1998); through a socio-culturallmulticultural perspectives; and through a social/critical constructivist approach to science education. Naming the differentinclusivemodels and locating them within a critical enterprise has focused attention on including the marginalized as the solution to social justice in science education. This focus on the inclusive diverts attention from mainstream science that then remains unaltered and dominant as a depoliticised, neutral and value- free knowledge-form. Inclusivity then serves to become nothing more than a veneer for an unaltered mainstream science and in this way inclusivity also contributes to the domestication of the critical enterprise. What this domestication of the critical perspective does is it silences the real existing social conditions in which the marginalized find themselves and live their lives through ignoring their existing social conditions and their historical present - both through science education and the contemporary social reality. This focus continues to guide science education in South Africa and science education in South Africa thus remains raced, classed, gendered, etc. Any real agency within this domesticated critical enterprise of enculturation into science education of the student and the teacher will ensure that real agency for social transformation remains an elusive delusion.