By foregrounding the oppression of race and racism, this methodology made it possible to generate data on the various oppressions and subordinations perpetuated in and through biology education. From this description it became possible to identify and theorize oppressions and subordinations within biology education at a third level of analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Desmond Archary (Anna) - my friend and colleague for the countless hours he spent scanning, printing and striving for perfection as only he can do. George Eric Penman - my husband for his support, encouragement and taking on household duties in the confused way that only he can.
THANK YOU
BIOLOGY IS A RESPECTED AND VALID SCIENCEI
WHAT DELUSIONS THEN OF DISCRIMINATION?)
- INTRODUCTION
- THE RESEARCHER
- THE SCHOOL
- THE BIOLOGY CLASSROOM
- THE BIOLOGY TEACHER
- THE BIOLOGY CURRICULUM (OF POSTAPARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA)
- BIOLOGY EDUCATION, RACISM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- THE DISSERTATION: A SUMMARY
The stories reveal the oppression and subjugation students deal with in the biology classroom, school, and society at large. The student experience placed students in the positions of oppressors and oppressed in various categories.
FROM RACE AND RACISM TO BIOLOGY EDUCATION
TO EVERY SCHOOL-GOING CHILD
INTRODUCTION
A range of attempts to explain race and racism from a biological to a civilizational perspective is reviewed. Next, the need for meaningful politicized biology education toward social justice from the perspective of race is explored.
IDENTITY
Thus, we should not talk about self-esteem as a global entity, but about self-identity in the plural (Bianchini, Cavazos, and Helms, 2000). It was this confusion that they had to work through and unravel as they worked through their understanding of the various identities that abounded in the biology classroom, the school, and the wider community.
RACE AND IDENTITY
Reclassification was on the basis of the pencil test, skin color and/or nose width (as explained earlier). Its flexibility was located in the classification of 'Honorary', 'Other' and the reclassification of white to colored.
RACE AND RACISM
This remains true despite the critic's tradition of not participating in the production of the negative. This recognition will make it possible to unmask the challenges specific to different places/contexts.
WHAT COUNTS AS EDUCATION
What exists in the United States is very different from what exists in South Africa. This should be clarified by talking about it in class (Fernandez-Balboa, 1998).
WHAT COUNTS AS SCIENCE EDUCATION
In science education, only certain groups were privileged in the curriculum by selectively including and excluding subjects and by teaching science as a neutral subject. The domestication of a critical perspective in science education is evident in Taylor and Cobern's (1998) explanation of their view of critical science education.
WHAT COUNTS AS BIOLOGY EDUCATION
In post-apartheid South Africa, human rights, social justice and transformation are the cornerstones of the National Curriculum Statement in an effort to heal, among other things, the racist divisions of pre-colonial and apartheid South Africa. Talk of race is also important in education in general—recognizing that it provides only one of the myriad necessary inputs to addressing issues of subordination as we strive for any concept of social justice.
CONCLUSION
I do this by centering race while recognizing that race intersects and interacts with all other “isms” of discrimination; Race in no way subordinates the “isms” of discrimination. By making race the center of my approach and leveraging the efforts of others, centering each of the isms in an effort to address something.
TOWARDS A CRITICAL BIOLOGY EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
A critical perspective is historically, contextually, and ethically situated and provides insight into the public discourse that has contributed to the new authoritarianism of the past decade. In this case, the policy of educational reform becomes part of a policy of pragmatic possibility, attentive both to the reduction of injustice and suffering, and to the need for new alliances; a new politics of connection in which the production of knowledge, social identities and social relations includes as defining principles such categories as justice, equality, war and democracy' (p. 63).
CRITICAL THEORY AND CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
In an interview with Rizvi (2002), McLaren states that there is no unified conception of critical pedagogy. An important dimension of critical pedagogy is that which arises from the nature of.
OPPRESSION AND THE DILEMMA OF A THEORY OF RACE
For Black and People of Color, the racial identity model consists of five statuses, namely: pre-encounter (Black) or conformity (People of Color); encounter (black) or dissonance (people of color); immersion-emersion; internalization; and internalization—engagement (blacks) or integrative awareness (people of color). Racial identity theory reveals that whites, as the favored group, enjoy educational, social, economic, and political rewards, while blacks and people of color have less access to educational, social, economic, and political rewards and benefits.
FROM CRITICAL RACE TO ANTIRACIST EDUCATION
The goal of a revolutionary workers' pedagogy for McLaren and Farahmandpur (2001) is to make students critically maladjusted to globalization so that they can become agents of change in the struggle against the various discriminatory practices. However, it will only be effective if there is a commitment to a meta-narrative of social justice, both within the classroom and beyond, at school and in the wider community.
DILEMMAS OF A CRITICAL RACE-ANTIRACIST EDUCATION: a critique
By ignoring race in the biology curriculum, biology education fulfills the claim of biology as apolitical within that context that considers education as non-political. A further criticism of the critical perspective lies in the failure to develop the perspective in the knowledge domains of a discipline such as biology.
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DILEMMA OF A CRITICAL EDUCATION
The demand then becomes one where the discipline itself is in no way invalidated when presented in educational institutions. The knowledge that constitutes the discipline should not be denied to those engaged in the discipline.
CRITICAL SCIENCE EDUCATION
Decisive elements for an anti-racist science education are the demythologizing of science and the politicization of science education. In this way, the status of science and natural science education as a goal is maintained in silence.
BIOLOGY EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
Gutstein (2003) notes that a central part of teaching for social justice is working for a society in which racism is reduced and eventually eliminated. What would biology education for social justice require? It would require a recognition, respect and appreciation of relevant differences in the classroom.
CONCLUSION
The role of the biology education curriculum in validating and supporting oppression based on race, gender, class, language, religion, etc. This exposure of oppression and subjugation in and through biological education would then enable work for a society in which reduction might be possible.
RESEARCHING MY BIOLOGY CLASSROOM
INTRODUCTION
So the students and I were not unfamiliar with each other and with what was acceptable in the biology class. For many students in the class, biology was part of the course package that included Speech and Drama - their subject of choice.
CRITICAL RESEARCH AND BIOLOGY EDUCATION
This had to happen with the knowledge and consent of the student participant so that ethical issues were also addressed. Purposeful intrusive strategies that at the same time respect the participants when used in research contribute to the catalytic validity of the research (Ropers-Huilman, 1999).
WHY CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
I could get to know it by understanding the world of my biology students in the biology classroom, at school, and in the broader community. Such efforts can forge a relationship between the intellectual activity of research and the practice of the researcher's daily life, as happened in my biology class (Trueba, 1999).
WHY A CRITICAL SELF-ETHNOGRAPHY
My goal was to contribute to the beginning of social justice in the lives of the students who passed through my classroom. Naive or tangible, I believed this could be worked towards using classroom practice to influence not only what went on in the classroom, but also influence students' lives in both school and the wider community.
DATA GENERATION
This unit was introduced in the biology class with a statement that it was not part of the official exam syllabus. She brought up this idea of a robot in the interview several times during the interview (see page 8 and page 9 of the transcript). This is what gave me the idea for the title of the story.
VOICES FROM MY CLASSROOM
INTRODUCTION
It will be interesting, but I don't know if we would discuss it in biology class. Just like you shouldn't talk about racism and racist understandings in bio class.
In this case, there is nothing wrong if religion is allowed in the biology class, because it will give a complete view of the situation. Racists - you get one or two of those who don't get along with the blacks in the class.
Naeem Jamal
It is in the biology class that we have been able to learn about the different races and the different cultures. We need to know what is happening in the world, especially in the different religions.
Nelisiwe Faith Mzanzi
Yes, most blacks are HIV positive, but it's not just blacks as they say. I don't know if talking about it in class will serve any purpose.
Nelisiwe Faith Mzanzi
It is the diseases that can occur from rape that are part of the biology, not the rape itself. Biology should be facts from textbooks and also what we learn from others.
NFI0
Biology is the only subject where we talked about abortion, racism, sexism, HIV and AIDS, teenage pregnancy and homosexuality. By discussing these works I am able to learn some things that I did not know before.
NFll
Nomathanda Vusi
You Think I'm A Strong And An Empowered Woman - HUH!
We have to talk about what is going on in the townships – also in the bio class. This is a big gap in the bio curriculum - we will talk about it in this bio lesson.
LeT us STANt>
CONCLUSION
The dialogue in biology lessons then moved away from the facts of biology and brought into the lesson students' understanding of what biology education should consist of. These dialogues about whether biological education should remain within biological facts or whether everyday issues related to the social reality of students should highlight the conflicts that students had to face.
DISRUPTIONS IN THE BIOLOGY CLASS
INTRODUCTION
Practical applications of genetics focused on how genetics served human interests with reference to increased productivity and the inheritance and prediction of blood types. With biological determinism, students were introduced to biology's historical role with reference to racial categorization.
CELL DIVISION: MITOSIS
Once this was done, the focus was placed on gametes as vehicles through which traits were transmitted. There was no room in this substantive program for deviations outside the prescribed factual academic knowledge. It was this traditional biology that students were used to and expected.
Mitosis in plant cells
We're talking about the events in the cell nucleus—specifically, what happens to the tangled web of chromatin. The preparatory interphase is when DNA replication takes place so that the genetic material is doubled in the mother cell.
Early anaphase
Late anaphase
HUMAN REPRODUCTION
If there are sperm nearby, those that reach the egg first will fertilize it. This added to the burning issues in the class and double dating girls were now part of the discussion.
STD'S AND HIV
Yes, that's right – the body's ability to produce antibodies to fight diseases caused by viruses. The class agrees - yes, this is how the vaccine works - you get a dose of the virus in the weakened or dead form and the body then builds up a resistance to the virus.
GENETICS
In KZN, the age group with the highest infection rate is the 15-25 year age group. Mendel also crossed pure bred plants with round and yellow seeds with plants with wrinkled and green seeds.
Incomplete dominance of flower colour
