Relations Between Disputing Cultures in Brazilian Science Curriculum

Abstract

In this chapter, we analyze relations between the dominant culture and the marginalized culture in Brazilian science education scholarship, inspired by traditional, critical, and post-colonial curricular theories. We bring the critical theorization of Boaventura de Sousa Santos ((2009) Epistemologias do Sul. Edições Almedina, Coimbra) and post-colonial concepts of Homi Bhabha ((1998) O lugar da cultura. Editora da UFMG, Belo Horizonte) to compose a theoretical framework to understand cultural encounters in science curriculum. We classify the encounters in two groups: in the first, students’ culture is silenced or reduced to previous knowledge to be substituted by scientific knowledge, a process that suits the traditional science curriculum. In the second group, obtained from a search in Brazilian science education literature, students’ culture is recognized, be in a critical multiculturalist proposal or in this framework inserted of post-colonialist concepts. In both proposals, the category of interculturality was relevant to interpret the dynamic in the cultural encounters. The science curriculum that explores the concept of interculturality understands these encounters as a kind of interaction between local culture and Western modern science in a respectful and beneficial dialogue that can broaden students’ cultural horizons. The analysis has been enriched when complemented by post-colonial concept of “interplace.” We discuss a possible interpretation for this configuration and its consequences for science curriculum.