OUTLINE OF THESIS This thesis is presented as six chapters, some of which contain several sections. These are followed by the list of references, and finally the appendices, which contain examples of the research instruments and extracts showing the analysis of the data. The chapters are presented as follows: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework Chapter 3 Positionality Statement Chapter 4 Research Methodology Chapter 5 Results and Analysis Chapter 6 Discussion and Conclusion In quoting from the data, codes or pseudonyms have been used in accordance with University of the Witwatersrand ethics requirements to protect the identity of the respondents. All quotes have been transcribed as written by the students, without any correction of spelling or grammatical errors. Where possible, the data (particularly the interviews) have been checked by the participants and have been used in this thesis with their permission. The terms that have been used in this thesis conform to common usage of these terms in the science education literature. However, in some cases, these make use of the negative as a ‘catch all’ phrase, for example ‘non-Western’ or 'non-Christian'. In South Africa, the negative has carried a racist connotation in some cases, for example the use of ‘non- European’ as a descriptor for Black South Africans, where the use of the 'non' acted to create an inferior 'other'. Consequently 'South African' or 'African' have been used wherever possible, with Black, White and Indian being used to denote the different race groups making up the research sample. The capitalization of these descriptors is extended to the use of 'Western' as opposed to 'African' beliefs or epistemology or science, and to proper nouns such as the 'Earth', 'Moon' and 'Sun'. This thesis supports the call to recognize and value other ways of knowing and suggests a simple way to act on this that will not compromise the personal beliefs of the educator or student, but act to prevent the erection of barriers to learning and possibly serve to reduce those that already exist. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND 3 1.1.1 South Africa 1.1.2 Astronomy education 1.1.3 The current study 1.2 THE RESEARCH PROBLEM 7 1.3 AIM OF THE STUDY 10 1.4 THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 10 1.5 RATIONALE 10 1.6 LIMITATIONS 12 1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS 13 2 CHAPTER 1 “A lot of White people – this is what I think and it makes sense to me – basically, I think a lot of White people, they understand this Universe thing well than a lot of us Black people. I don’t know why… I don’t know why it’s like that. They seem to have a better understanding of this solar system, Universe, everything like that. I’ve tried to understand why it’s like that, but I have been failing to. But, that’s what I think. And they always show interest… you know? There is a major difference though, between a Black man trying to show interest in the Universe and things like that – you know, the solar system and the stars, things like that … but for White people, they always show that kind of interest – they even understand it better. They can even explain it to you and maybe you will get something you maybe didn’t even know.” (Madala, interview, 2004) 1.1 BACKGROUND 1.1.1 South Africa It has long been a cause for concern in science education that learners who come from a background based in traditional culture appear to struggle more than their Western counterparts in the meaningful learning of science (Abimbola, 1977; Adeyinka, Kyeleve and Yandila, 1999; Aikenhead, 1996; Ogunniyi, 1995). In South Africa, recent research into the state of science and mathematics education by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), described the poor performance and participation in mathematics and science as a 'national crisis', with the effects being “most evident in respect of African learners” (Bernstein, Clynick and Lee, 2004, 23). In 2002, only 7 129 African learners passed Higher Grade science1, representing only 14% of the total number of Senior Certificate passes (Ibid.)2. Concern about the poor quality of teaching and learning is shared by politicians, parents, economists, business people and universities, with the low numbers of graduates in mathematics and science being seen as “holding back African advancement” and “placing a huge obstacle in the way of achieving almost all the government’s ambitions to open up vast new areas of opportunity for Black South Africans” (Ibid.). The common purpose of initiatives in South Africa to improve mathematics and 1 "Science" refers to Physical Science in terms of the South African curriculum. Physical Science is usually simply referred to as 'science', while Biological Science is referred to as 'biology' and Earth Science is included in 'geography'. 2 Similar demographic statistics for 2005 / 6 were unobtainable, but the pass rate overall for Higher Grade Physical Science at matric level in 2005 was 48% (Department of Education statistics, accessed through the Independent Schools Association of South Africa, 30th November, 2006). 3 science education is related to the “fact that these subjects are increasingly important to any economy that wishes to compete in the global economy” (Ibid., 5), indicating that these initiatives have economic advancement as a common driver. The consequence of the results of research such as that conducted by the CDE, which highlights the low levels of achievement in these subjects is further research, directed at improving teaching and learning in these areas. This includes studies which focus on multicultural education, where the potential effect of worldview on learning is investigated. In this context, issues that may form barriers to learning - and how to overcome them - come under the spotlight, but broader issues are also raised, such as questions regarding the unexamined extension of the hegemony of Western science in comparison to other ways of knowing. South African society is enormously diverse in terms of culture, and since South Africa’s historic change to a democratic government in 1994, the development of the national education policy has been transformed as a result of its alignment with South Africa’s internationally acclaimed constitution which gives status and recognition to people regardless of race, gender or religion. The apartheid era educational system, Christian National Education (CNE) - one of the most important apartheid structures to be dismantled after the 1994 elections - has been replaced with Outcomes Based Education (OBE) which has been designed to be culturally sensitive and to address the inequalities of the past. Because OBE is based on a constructivist approach, the focus is on learning which builds on prior knowledge, as well as on learning outcomes, rather than on transmission and the assessment of rote learning. One of the most exciting developments in the new curriculum has been the explicit recognition of the presence of ‘other ways of knowing’ in South Africa’s ‘Rainbow Nation’. These 'other ways of knowing', or as they are becoming commonly known, Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), have been described in the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS, which covers Reception to Grade 9), as “a body of knowledge embedded in African philosophical thinking and social practices that have evolved over thousands of years” (Department of Education, 2002 (a), 9). The importance of these other worldviews is recognized in Learning Outcome 3 in the RNCS for the Natural Sciences, while in the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) which provides the curriculum for Grades 10 to 12, the need to value indigenous knowledge is given as one of the underlying principles of the new curriculum (Department of Education, 2003). The draft document of the NCS (Department of Education (b), 2002) required that these culturally based 'other ways of knowing' should be 'recognized and valued'. This wording was somewhat altered in the final NCS document (Department of Education, 2003), to state that the wide diversity of knowledge systems through which people made sense of, and attached meaning to the world in which they live, was to be recognised, and that the NCS had 'infused' IKS into the subject statements. However, the implicit requirement that there should be recognition or at least acknowledgement, if not valuing, of these 'other ways of knowing', remains embodied in the principles of this curriculum. Yet neither the RNCS nor 4 the NCS provide any guidelines on how these other worldviews should be acknowledged, nor how IKS should be incorporated into a science curriculum that continues to be based on a positivist Western epistemology. This study, which falls into the broad spectrum of research in multiculturalism in science education, is an investigation of the cultural barriers to learning experienced by South African university foundation and first year students, in a course in basic astronomy offered at the University of the Witwatersrand. Astronomy is an ancient science, with knowledge of the heavenly bodies stretching back into the written and oral histories of past cultures. But it is also an ultra-modern science that has allowed for manned space travel and the means to explain the formation of the Universe and the solar system. This modern ‘Western’ science has enabled us to collect Moon rocks and perform laser surgery on human foetuses; it has created genetically modified foods, satellite television and cellular phones, as well as weapons of mass destruction and global warming. It has created a knowledge system that is different and separate from the traditional knowledge systems that have evolved over thousands of years - and in a relatively short time, it has been disseminated by colonialism and entrenched by globalization in countries all over the world.