Teachers’ indigenous knowledge and the possibilities of integrating it with life sciences teaching and learning

Abstract

The teaching and learning of Sciences in schools in South Africa can be challenging for teachers and learners. Therefore, the focus of Science education is to make Science accessible and attractive to all learners in the classroom. This study explores teachers’ Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and the possibilities of integrating it with Life Sciences teaching and learning in the classroom context. However, in South Africa, teachers are struggling with how IK should be integrated with science for a culturally relevant science classroom. Therefore the following research questions were posed: How is IK represented in the grade 10, 11 and 12 Life Sciences curricula in South Africa classroom? What perception do teachers have of Indigenous Knowledge? What are teachers’ experience and the possibilities of integrating IK and Life Sciences’ concepts to promote Science in the classroom? A qualitative case study research approach was adopted for this study. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select the participants of this study. Grades 10, 11 and 12 Life Sciences teachers in four peri-urban high schools (13 teachers) in South Africa were involved in this study. This study adopted the constructivist theory as the suitable theoretical framework to unpack the research questions. Interviews, questionnaire as well as content analysis of the NCS and CAPS document were used to collect rich qualitative data in this study. The questionnaires were piloted, and several changes made before it was administered for the main study. Findings from this study revealed that; although the curriculum called for inclusion of IK in the teaching and learning of Science in the classroom, how teachers should integrate both worldviews were not explicitly provided; teacher’s view of IK and Westernized Science is that both worldviews are ways of knowing and they both share common grounds as to their scientific nature; teachers’ view of IK indicated that teachers are aware of their IK and the possibilities of integrating such knowledge in their Life 3 Sciences classrooms were emphasized. From the findings, it was recommended that the curriculum need to be explicit with the information on how teachers should integrate IK and Westernized Science in their teaching practice. Also, cultural artefacts should be made available for teachers to effectively integrate IK and Westernized Science. The implication of this study to Science education is that the integration of IK and Westernized Science in the Science classroom influences the need for a more culturally relevant classroom to make Science more meaningful to learners.