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Between Local Culture and School Science: The Case of Provincial and Urban Students from Eastern Colombia

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Abstract

A lack of congruency between the teaching and learning of science and the student’s personal worlds has long been recognised by the international science education community as an issue deserving space in the research agenda. The purpose of this study was to explore the diversity of student reactions when subcultures such as family, community peers, and personal worldviews are considered along side the subculture of school science. Two-hundred and fifty students from urban and provincial schools in the northeastern region of Colombia (South America) participated. From this group, 18 students were interviewed. It was observed that students adopt a compartmentalisation of knowledge that is evident as both an avoiding strategy in the classroom and as a mechanism to differentiate between the natural world of their everyday situations and the one portrayed by a Westernised science instruction in the classroom. The findings reflect how multiple worldviews correlate with student frameworks as implanted by school science.

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Notes

  1. All participant names are pseudonyms.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable insight provided by Dr. Robert Yager in completing this paper.

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  1. Department of Secondary Education, College of Education, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave., McWhinnie Hall 114, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    William Medina-Jerez

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Medina-Jerez, W. Between Local Culture and School Science: The Case of Provincial and Urban Students from Eastern Colombia. Res Sci Educ 38, 189–212 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-007-9044-y

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