Overview
- Authors:
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Darren M. O’Hern
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The Council for International Culture and Education, USA
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Yoshiko Nozaki
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Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
- Through a multi-sited qualitative study of three rural and urban schools in Kenya, the volume examines the ways the colonial legacy of inequality and the dichotomy between “Western” and “indigenous” knowledge intersect in natural science education and calls for critical postcolonial approaches.
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 1-12
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 13-32
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 33-45
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 47-62
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 63-85
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 87-107
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 109-132
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- Darren M. O’Hern, Yoshiko Nozaki
Pages 133-148
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Back Matter
Pages 149-162
About this book
Through a multi-sited qualitative study of three Kenyan secondary schools in rural Taita Hills and urban Nairobi, the volume explores the ways the dichotomy between “Western” and “indigenous” knowledge operates in Kenyan education. In particular, it examines views on natural sciences expressed by the students, teachers, the state’s curricula documents, and schools’ exam-oriented pedagogical approaches. O’Hern and Nozaki question state and local education policies and practices as they relate to natural science subjects such as agriculture, biology, and geography and their dismissal of indigenous knowledge about environment, nature, and sustainable development. They suggest the need to develop critical postcolonial curriculum policies and practices of science education to overcome knowledge-oriented binaries, emphasize sustainable development, and address the problems of inequality, the center and periphery divide, and social, cultural, and environmental injustices in Kenya and, by implication, elsewhere.
“In an era of environmental crisis and devastation, education that supports sustainability and survival of our planet is needed. Within a broader sociopolitical context of post-colonialism and globalization, this volume points out possibilities and challenges to achieve such an education. The authors propose a critical, postcolonial approach that acknowledges the contextual and situational production of all knowledge, and that de-dichotomizes indigenous from ‘Western’ scientific knowledge.”
Eric (Rico) Gutstein, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Chicago (USA)
Authors and Affiliations
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The Council for International Culture and Education, USA
Darren M. O’Hern
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Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Yoshiko Nozaki