Abstract
This chapter explores a number of challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities facing science education as new and complex global processes affect the ways in which knowledge is produced and circulated. Major themes of the chapter include the difficulties of implementing Western science education programs in cross-cultural and/or multicultural settings and the extent to which the doctrine of constructivism resolves issues of cultural difference, even for those science educators who are particularly attentive to the cultural contexts of science and science education. It is argued that although Western science educators cannot speak from outside their own Eurocentrism, asking questions about the globalization of science education as a cultural practice might help to make both the limits and strengths of Western science’s knowledge traditions more visible.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Australian Education Council (1991). A National Statement on Science for Australian Schools: Complete Consultative Draft #1 (Carlton, Victoria: Australian Education Council).
Bowers, C. A. (2005). The false promise of constructivist theories of learning: A global and ecological critique. New York: Peter Lang.
Cobb, P. (1994). Constructivism in mathematics and science education. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 4.
Cobern, W. W. (1996). Constructivism and non-western science education research. International Journal of Science Education, 18(3), 295–310.
Code, L. (2000). How to think globally: stretching the limits of imagination. In U. Narayan & S. Harding (Eds.), Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world (pp. 67–79). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Cooper, V., Pople, S., Ray, B., Seidel, P., & Williams, M. (1988). Science to sixteen 1. (Revised Australian ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Driver, R., Asoko, H., Leach, J., Mortimer, E., & Scott, P. (1994). Constructing scientific knowledge in the classroom. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 5–12.
Fensham, P. J., Gunstone, R. F., & White, R. T. (Eds.). (1994). The content of science: A constructivist approach to its teaching and learning. London: The Falmer Press.
Gough, N. (1998). All around the world: science education, constructivism, and globalization. Educational Policy, 12(5), 507–524.
Gross, P. R., & Levitt, N. (1994). Higher superstition: The academic left and its quarrels with science. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gunstone, R. F. (1988). Learners in science education. In P. Fensham (Ed.), Developments and dilemmas in science education (pp. 73–95). London: The Falmer Press.
Harding, S. (Ed.). (1993). The ‘Racial’ economy of science: Toward a democratic future. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Harding, S. (1994). Is science multicultural? Challenges, resources, opportunities, uncertainties. Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology, 2(2), 301–330.
Harré, R. (1986). Varieties of realism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hayles, N. K. (1993). Constrained constructivism: locating scientific inquiry in the theater of representation. In G. Levine (Ed.), Realism and representation: Essays on the problem of realism in relation to science, literature and culture (pp. 27–43). Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Jansen, S. C. (1990). Is science a man? New feminist epistemologies and reconstructions of knowledge. Theory and Society, 19, 235–246.
Knudtson, P., & Suzuki, D. (1992). Wisdom of the elders. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Maybury-Lewis, D. (1991). Millennium: Tribal wisdom of the modern world. London: Viking.
Parsons, M. (1996). Science 4. Melbourne: Heinemann.
Peat, F. D. (1997). Blackfoot physics and European minds. Futures, 29(6), 563–573.
Petitjean, P., Jami, C., & Moulin, A. M. (Eds.). (1992). Science and empires: Historical studies about scientific development and european expansion. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer.
Popper, K. (1965). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press.
Sardar, Z. (Ed.). (1988). The revenge of athena: Science, exploitation and the third world. London: Mansell.
Sardar, Z. (1989). Explorations in islamic science. London: Mansell.
Serres, M. (1982). Hermes: Literature, science, philosophy (J. V. Harari and D. F. Bell, eds). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Simon, P. (1986). All around the world; or, the myth of fingerprints [Song]. Burbank CA: Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Slattery, L. (1995, July 15–16). The big questions. The Australian Magazine, 12–19.
Sutton, C. (1992). Words, science and learning. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Third World Network. (1988). Modern science in crisis: A third world response. Penang, Malaysia: Third World Network.
Tobin, K. (1990). Social constructivist perspectives on the reform of science education. Australian Science Teachers Journal, 36(4), 29–35.
Turnbull, D. (1991). Mapping the world in the mind: An investigation of the unwritten knowledge of the micronesian navigators. Geelong: Deakin University Press.
Wagner, J. (1993). Ignorance in educational research: or, how can you not know that? Educational Researcher, 22(5), 15–23.
Wynne, B. (1994). Scientific knowledge and the global environment. In M. Redclift & T. Benton (Eds.), Social theory and the global environment (pp. 169–189). London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gough, N. (2008). All Around the World Science Education, Constructivism, and Globalisation. In: Atweh, B., et al. Internationalisation and Globalisation in Mathematics and Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5908-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5908-7_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-8790-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-5908-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)